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Sr 4TES O'* ^ 


The ''State Team 
for the Future 


// 


Report of the Commission 

_ . . / ;< 

on State Department, 
Personnel 



\ r ' 

\ \ 


October 1992 


, V 


DEPARTMENT OF STATE PUBLICATION 10018 
Bureau of Personnel 
Office of the Executive Director 


Released October 1992 






s Qtes c# ^ 



The State Team 
for the Future 


Report of the Commission 
on State Department 
Personnel 


October 1992 



















JZ)M20 

.M 

|C\QQ_ 

C.op'^2- 











r > 

Table of Contents 

_ J 

Page 

Context. 1 

Summary . 1 

Part 1—General Discussion and Proposals. 3 

Management Input and Flexibility. 3 

Assignment Policy/Procedures. 4 

Civil Service/Foreign Service. 4 

Civil Service Rotational Tours. 5 

Nontraditional Personnel Resources. 5 

Part Time Intermittent Temporary Employment. 6 

American Family Members Associates Program. 6 

Locally Resident Americans. 6 

Personal Services Contractors (PSC's). 6 

Length of Tour Policy. 6 

Creating a Flexible Workforce. 6 

Workforce Planning. 6 

Planning, FTE, and Money Management. 7 

Recruitment. 7 

Targeted Recruiting and Selection for Needed Skills. 7 

Foreign Service Generalist. 7 

Foreign Service Specialist. 8 

Civil Service. 8 

Diversity/EEO Considerations. 8 

Foreign Service Mid-Level Entry Program. 9 

Training. 9 

Civil Service /Foreign Service Specialist/Foreign Service Generalist Conversions. 10 

Designation of Cones for Foreign Service Generalists. 10 

Cones for Junior Officers. 10 

Career Development Planning. 11 

Reorganization of Human Resources Activities in the Department of State. 11 

Redefined Role for Director General of the Foreign Service... 11 

Creation of Assistant Secretary for Human Resources. 11 

Reorganization/Retitling of the Bureau of Personnel. 12 

Part 2—Detailed Response to Commission Mandate. 13 

Commission Mandate. 13 

Commission Report on Specific Issues in the Mandate. 14 


in 










































Thomas Commission Report Status. 14 

(Department of State Report on status of implementation 
of Thomas Report) 

Introduction. 14 

Specific Recommendations. 14 

Nature of the System. 14 

Career Progression. 15 

Examination of the Contribution of Civil Service Employees. 17 

USUN Personnel Management Issues. 17 

Other Mandate Issues. 19 

Section 607 Issue—Senior Time-in-Class. 19 

Allowances and Housing. 19 

Part 3—Other Major Issues. 23 

Senior Foreign Service Issues. 23 

Size of the Senior Foreign Service. 23 

Time-in-Class and Limited Career Extension Rules. 23 

Foreign Service Specialist Issues. 24 

Administrative Subfunctions. 24 

Information Officers. 24 

Security Specialists. 25 

Secretaries' Issues. 25 

Foreign Service Secretaries. 25 

Civil Service Secretaries. 26 

Secretarial Coordinator. 26 

Commission Findings on Secretarial Issues. 26 

Foreign Service National Issues. 27 

Staffing the Visa Function. 27 

Communication. 28 

Appendixes 

Appendix I—Methodology. 29 

Appendix II—Report of the Thomas Commission. 31 

Appendix III—Report of the Haynes Commission. 98 

Appendix IV—People Seen by Commission/Staff. 130 

Appendix V—Commission Biographies. 136 


IV 



































Commission on State Department Personnel—Final Report 



Context 

The Commission on State Department Personnel was 
created by Public Law 102-38 of October 28, 1991, the 
Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 
1993. The Commi ssion began work on March 23,1992 in the 
midst of dynamic changes in the global foreign affairs 
landscape. In order adequately to execute its mandate, the 
Commission has operated on certain assumptions concern¬ 
ing the mission of the Department of State. 

The end of the Cold War and the ensuing proliferation 
of new nation states, the challenges of multilateral diplo¬ 
macy, and the growing internationalization of economic 
activities all emphasize that, in its own interests, the United 
States must continue to play a leading, if altered, role in 
international affairs. In an era of obviously increasing 
interdependency, regionally and globally, neither we nor 
the rest of the world can escape from each other. 

Foreign policy, therefore, will continue to be of great 
significance, and under the direction of the President, the 
Department of State will remain the central institution in 
the process of foreign policy creation and implementation. 
It matters, therefore, who staffs the Department at home 
and at the 250 Foreign Service posts abroad. 

The mandate of the Commission is to review the human 
resource base of the Department of State and to assess the 
Department's efficiency and effectiveness in recruiting, 
training, and utilizing its essential asset—people—in the 
changing circumstances. 

Both the Congress and the management of the Department 
of State have emphasized that the Commission should 
conduct its work within the broadest perspective, encom¬ 
passing the Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel 
systems (and their subcategories), including personnel at 
home and abroad. In this respect, we have accepted as 
given that there will be a continuing need for an active 
official U.S. Government presence abroad. For example, 
instantaneous news-reporting from abroad in any medium 
increases the flow of information available in Washington. 
But this only marginally impacts on the essential work of 
Ambassadors in supporting U.S. interests directly with 
foreign governments and making policy recommendations 


designed to protect and promote U.S. interests in the areas 
of their responsibilities. 

The Commission is well aware that some of its recom¬ 
mendations may require more money and that it is unlikely 
that the Department will receive significantly increased 
resources to meet the new personnel challenges. In this 
respect, the Department has set an example by quickly 
staffing the new posts in the former Soviet Union by real- 
locations of existing personnel resources. 

Certain positions cannot, however, always be filled 
through personnel reassignments. To find the necessary 
resources to finance and support its new substantive per¬ 
sonnel requirements, the Department of State will have to 
restructure as well as reposition its work force. The Depart¬ 
ment should consider shifts of resources from Washington- 
based administrative support activities to high priority 
program activities in the Department (including training) 
and in the field. We understand that the management of the 
Department is moving in this direction. 

The Commission also understands that there is grow¬ 
ing interest in the Congress and the Executive Branch in 
considering a post-Cold War reorganization of the foreign 
affairs community. The Commission believes such a re¬ 
view would be timely and expects that the conclusions of 
the Commission would be useful and applicable regardless 
of the impact of any such reorganization on the Department 
of State. 

Summary 

The Commission on State Department Personnel rec¬ 
ommends that: 

• The basic personnel structure of the Department of 
State with two personnel systems—Foreign Service 
and Civil Service—be retained. 

• The Department of State take appropriate steps to 
assure that the Civil Service is strengthened as a 
Department career, and that Civil Service person¬ 
nel are fully utilized. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


1 








Worldwide availability, the distinguishing charac¬ 
teristic of a separate Foreign Service, be empha¬ 
sized as a primary condition for retention and 
advancement. 

The Department of State consistently emphasize a 
"one team" approach, with the two services work¬ 
ing together in carrying out its assigned missions. 

The Department of State make continuing efforts to 
create a work force that is representative of America. 

The Department of State accelerate its efforts to 
establish a comprehensive, strategic planning sys¬ 
tem that emphasizes human resource requirements 
as an essential step toward the better matching of 
skills with needs. 

The Department of State be more flexible in its 
personnel policies and practices to meet the re¬ 
quirements of post-Cold War diplomacy, specifi¬ 
cally to: 

—Shift the emphasis in assigning all types of per¬ 
sonnel more toward matching the skill of the 
employee to the needs of the Department. 

—Create more formal but less cumbersome pro¬ 
grams for excursion assignments and conver¬ 
sions between the two personnel systems. 

—Make better use of nontraditional personnel re¬ 
sources in areas such as family employment and 
hiring locally resident Americans abroad. 

—Reconsider length of tour policy with a view to 
extending tour length at overseas posts and for 
certain key specialties wherever feasible. 

—Emphasize the need for appropriate training for 
Department employees consistent with the re¬ 
quirements of the new diplomacy and the need 
for greater flexibility 


The Department of State conduct more targeted 
recruiting to: 

—Improve racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. 

—Attract Foreign Service Generalist candidates 
with skills in management and administration. 

—Emphasize career, rather than solely job-oriented 
recruitment, of Civil Service employees, includ¬ 
ing the possibility of occasional overseas service. 

The Department of State move more rapidly to 
establish a comprehensive planning and evalua¬ 
tion system to ensure the relevance and effective¬ 
ness of personnel programs to agency objectives. 

The current responsibilities of the Director General 
of the Foreign Service be redefined. He/she would 
serve as a principal adviser on Foreign Service 
policy issues to the Secretary of State and the 
Undersecretary for Management; be responsible 
for personnel activities related to the more than 150 
Chiefs of Mission; and, as Chairman of the Board of 
the Foreign Service, be the interagency policy coor¬ 
dinator for the entire Foreign Service of the United 
States. 

The human resource management activities of the 
Department of State be headed by a statutorily 
established Assistant Secretary of State for Human 
Resources selected from either the Senior Execu¬ 
tive Service or the Senior Foreign Service, who 
would report to the Under Secretary for Manage¬ 
ment. 

The Bureau of Personnel be retitled as the Bureau of 
Human Resources and be reorganized to include 
separate and complete personnel support systems 
for the Foreign Service and the Civil Service, each 
under the direction of a Deputy Assistant Secre¬ 
tary. 


2 


Final Report 


r 


Part 1—General Discussion and Proposals 


The Commission's recommendations seek to optimize 
the Department of State's use of human resources to meet 
the challenge of conducting international relations in the 
new era and to develop a capable, flexible work force to 
meet these needs. The Commission supports a "one team" 
approach to staffing for foreign affairs, encompassing all 
employees in the Foreign Service and the "Domestic Service" 
(the Civil Service) aimed at providing the best possible 
service to the nation. 

The Commission was impressed with the dedication 
and skill of employees in all systems, but believes that the 
Department of State could manage and organize these 
people more effectively. Existing legal authorities for the 
most part are adequate for this purpose; only a few im¬ 
provements would require legislative action. 

The Commission examined the Civil Service and For¬ 
eign Service, the role of generalists and specialists and 
Foreign Service nationals and members of the Excepted 
Service in the United States Mission to the United Nations. 
The use of nontraditional employees (family members, 
locally resident Americans overseas, part-time workers, 
and personal services contractors (PSCs) also was consid¬ 
ered . There are about 9,000 members of the Foreign Service; 
7,000 members of the Civil Service; and 60,000 foreign 
nationals in employment and contractual relationships in 
the Department and overseas posts. 

The Commission considered and rejected the option of 
establishing a single, integrated personnel system for the 
Department of State. It concluded that the mission of the 
Department can best be accomplished by retaining two 
separate but interdependent personnel systems. The single 
service approach fails to recognize that the Department 
needs one group of people who principally serve in rota¬ 
tional tours overseas, and another group who spend the 
bulk of their careers in Washington, with personnel sys¬ 
tems that accommodate these orientations. 

The Foreign Service should continue to be primarily a 
relatively closed, bottom-entry, career-oriented, rank-in- 
person system emphasizing worldwide availability as an 
important condition for retention and advancement. To 
provide for fresh perspectives, however, there should be 
improved systems for mid-level entry into the Foreign 
Service. The Civil Service should retain its relatively open 


character, tied in with the rest of the executive branch as a 
rank-in-position system below the senior level, with the 
Senior Executive Service continuing as a rank-in-person 
system. Personnel policies and practices should emphasize 
flexible movement between the personnel systems rather 
than rigid boundary lines. 

The Commission notes that its mandate is broader than 
that of the Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel 
System (the Thomas Commission) of 1989, which was fo¬ 
cused on the Foreign Service and recommended a "closed, 
bottom-entry, up-or-out, rank-in-person system [as] envis¬ 
aged in the Foreign Service Act [of 1980 ... which] would 
apply to all Officers in the Foreign Affairs agencies, a 
departure from the separation into generalist and specialist 
categories..." 1 The Thomas Commission, consistent with 
its mandate, stressed stability and predictability within the 
Foreign Service; this Commission interprets its mandate as 
focusing on flexibility and opportunity within both the 
Foreign and Civil Services. 

Creating a wholly unified service would, however, 
pose difficult legislative and management problems. The 
Wriston program of the mid-1950's, a move toward a uni¬ 
fied service that succeeded in providing domestic positions 
for the Foreign Service, displaced many Civil Servants, took 
years to be implemented, and was not considered an un¬ 
qualified success. The Commission believes that the 
flexibilities it recommends go as far as is required at this 
time to coordinate the Department's personnel systems. 

The Department of State could better match skills to 
needs by sharper identification of human resource priori¬ 
ties. By better integration and development of flexible work 
forces, the Department could move toward meeting ex¬ 
panded and changing needs with current resources. Modi¬ 
fying the organization of personnel work would aid in 
achieving this goal. 

Management Input and Flexibility 

To meet the challenges of the 1990's and beyond, the 
Department of State must assign its people to positions of 
greatest need. The Commission found obstacles in place 


1 See Appendix II. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


3 







that thwart the ability of the Department to meet this 
objective, such as the complex Foreign Service assignment 
system that emphasizes technical issues (e.g., hardship 
bids, fair share, a highly structured bidding process) and 
personal preference at the expense of matching skilled 
people to program needs. Managers' ability to choose 
between Foreign Service and Civil Service staffing is ham¬ 
pered by a lack of systematized procedures for exchange 
assignments between services. 

To reiterate, the key concept is that more emphasis 
should be given to the "needs of the Department" in all 
aspects of the use of human resources. While employee 
preference should be an important factor to consider, pri¬ 
mary weight should go to management needs, with stress 
on service discipline in assignments for all Department of 
State personnel. 

The Commission urges increased line manager input in 
allocating human resources, specifically: 

Assignment Policy/Procedures 

The Foreign Service assignment system often succeeds 
in placing qualified persons in jobs they have sought, but 
there are instances in which important jobs are not filled by 
people with matching skills. Compliance with the arcana of 
the mechanistic open-assignments bidding process propels 
assignment decisionmaking far too often, relative to the 
filling of priority jobs with the right people. 

Moreover, the objective of placing employees in assign¬ 
ments they want is often unmet. Bidding rules force bids 
that misrepresent individuals' real preferences, giving 
managers with jobs to fill unreliable information. Likewise, 
rules limiting bids for stretch or out-of-cone jobs rob the 
system of its much vaunted flexibility. 

The Commission believes Bureau of Personnel (PER) 
assignment resources should be deployed in more of a staff 
role, with program managers having more formal input in 
selections for vacancies. Individual preferences would be 
one element of such a system, but management needs 
would be the driving determinant. 

The Commission would like to see a system in which: 

• Bureaus would prioritize their needs for filling 
upcoming vacancies, e.g., the Bureau of African 
Affairs might identify a slot in Lagos as more 
critical than a similar position in Cotonou, if only 
one officer of the desired grade and function were 
available. 

• PER would propose candidates to the bureaus, 
vetting qualifications, assuring that policies to 


achieve diversity are met and monitoring the pro¬ 
cess to ensure fairness in the assignment process. 
Bureaus would select from among the qualified; 
PER would referee conflicts. 

• PER also would be more active in career develop¬ 
ment, aided by the elimination of the conflict of 
interest that now afflicts Career Development Of¬ 
ficers (CDOs), who both fill jobs and advise em¬ 
ployees on career growth. CDOs should assist, but 
not play a deciding role, in making assignments. 

• The process for expressing assignment preferences 
is simplified. Employees would express prefer¬ 
ences free of current constraints on core bids, at- 
grade, and limits on stretches. The employee could 
indicate interest on any individual job, type of job, 
or location of assignment, but the whole assign¬ 
ment process would place primary emphasis on 
placing a person with the right skills in the open 
position. 

• The most important assignments are made first, so 
that positions that remain unfilled will be the low¬ 
est in priority. Currently, apart from DCM ships, 
fair share and hard-to-fill assignments (the latter 
categories may not be key jobs), the first assign¬ 
ments made often are those that are administra¬ 
tively easiest. 

Civil Service/Foreign Service 

An important step in enhancing management flexibil¬ 
ity would be to make exchange assignments between the 
Civil Service and the Foreign Service easier to accomplish. 
The Commission believes procedures for cross-service or 
exchange assignments of Civil Service and Foreign Service 
employees should be simple and transparent, in aid of 
matching skills to job needs. In particular, obstacles to 
exchange assignments for Civil Service employees need to 
be removed. 

Exchange assignments now take place, but discussions 
with incumbents indicate that procedures are cumbersome 
and poorly understood, with resulting delays and disincen¬ 
tives to proposing such assignments. The Department of 
State should see to it that: 

• Procedures for exchange assignments are well es¬ 
tablished and action offices clearly identified, in¬ 
cluding a single information and referral point in 
PER to advise and assist employees, act as a "home 
base" for them while in an exchange assignment, 
and facilitate their return to their parent service. 

• These procedures are communicated to all em¬ 
ployees. 


4 


Final Report 


• Civil Service employees are encouraged to apply 
for appropriate overseas assignments and domes¬ 
tic jobs classified in the Foreign Service. 

• Civil Servants can work in such jobs without taking 
limited Foreign Service appointments. A change of 
pay plan should occur if the employee plans a 
permanent change of career service, but should 
otherwise be optional. 

• Exchange assignments of Civil Service employees 
are not blocked by "losing bureau" refusals to 
release employees, in keeping with general policies 
favoring reassignments without reference to losing 
bureau preferences. 

• PER should develop placement mechanisms for 
employees returning from exchange assignments. 

• The proposal of the implementors of the Report of 
the Director General's Commission on Civil Ser¬ 
vice Improvements (the Task Force on Civil Service 
Improvements) 2 that Civil Servants be used to fill 
short term gaps in Foreign Service staffing over¬ 
seas be implemented. This can help augment cur¬ 
rent gap-filling efforts; it also will benefit the De¬ 
partment of State by giving Civil Servants an ap¬ 
preciation of overseas work, thus uniting institu¬ 
tional memory with hands-on practical experience. 
Most Foreign Service personnel interviewed by the 
Commission support this procedure. 

• Exchange assignments are perceived as needed for 
the effective accomplishment of the Department's 
mission, and not as a problem in managing either 
service. 

• A system to control the process is developed. This 
could involve setting informal ceilings on ex¬ 
changes, or establishing a formal preference for 
employees of either the Foreign Service or Civil 
Service competing with a would-be exchange as¬ 
signee from a different "parent service." Assign¬ 
ment preference could entail: 

(1) a requirement that a bureau consider qualified 
applicants from the "parent service" before consid¬ 
ering would-be exchange assignees; or, 

(2) allowing simultaneous consideration of candi¬ 
dates from both services, but requiring written 
explanation for turndowns of well-qualified appli¬ 
cants from the "parent service"; or. 


(3) a policy statement in favor of "parent service" 
preference, with enforcement keyed to controlling 
the volume of exchange assignments by bureau; or, 

(4) combinations of the above. 

But these processes should not be so rigid as to block 
exchange candidates until all "parent service" possibilities 
have been exhausted; filling jobs expeditiously while giv¬ 
ing due consideration to "parent service" candidates should 
be the goal. 

The Commission recommends that information about 
all anticipated Foreign Service and Civil Service vacancies 
be available to all employees, both overseas and in the 
United States. Any employee should be able to indicate 
interest in any job, regardless of service affiliation, so that 
the best use maybe made of employee skills to meet mission 
needs. 

Civil Service Rotational Tours 

The Civil Service provides continuity of experience 
hard to duplicate in the rotational Foreign Service. But this 
can also lead to a Civil Service employee's stagnation and 
frustrate management needs for a flexible Civil Service 
workforce. 

Establishing a tour rotation policy for appropriate Civil 
Service positions and employees would promote the acqui¬ 
sition of new skills and perspectives, as it does for the 
Foreign Service. Such a policy would lessen the prospect 
that assigning Civil Service people overseas or to Foreign 
Service positions in Washington would "lock up" such jobs 
for too long a period. 

The Commission recommends that the Department of 
State identify a significant number of potential Civil Service 
rotational positions and/or job families and use Civil Ser¬ 
vice rotation to promote flexibility within and between the 
two services. 

Non traditional Personnel Resources 

Nontraditional employees, such as the American Fam¬ 
ily Member Associates Program (AFM A), Permanent Inter¬ 
mittent Temporary (PIT) workers, and Personal Services 
Contractors (PSC), play an increasingly important role 
overseas. In that vein, the 1992-93 Authorization Act 
provides authority to set pay overseas for Locally Recruited 
Americans (LRA). 

Use of nontraditional personnel resources—especially 
when it involves family members of employees overseas— 
not only supplies needed workers to fill jobs, but provides 


2 See Appendix III. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


5 



opportunities for dependents who want to work and other¬ 
wise could not. 

Part Time Intermittent Temporary Employment (PIT). 

The Department of State uses the PIT authority extensively 
overseas to employ U.S. citizens. Dependents of American 
employees get preference for such employment, but others 
can be hired. 

The program provides American citizen employees for 
positions with none of the costs associated with sending 
Americans overseas; it also benefits family members, espe¬ 
cially at posts with few outside employment opportunities. 
The Commission supports the use of PIT employees and 
recommends that this practice be continued to the extent 
that it cannot be replaced by the American Family Member 
Associates Program. 

American Family Member Associates Program 
(AFMA). Under this program, family members become 
employees of the Department of State with permanent 
security clearances and retirement benefits. In this regard, 
the AFMA is superior to regular PIT employment, which 
requires the dependent to begin service anew in each posi¬ 
tion. 

The Commission supports expansion of this pilot pro¬ 
gram, as well as better dissemination of information about 
it; family members in several of the posts Commissioners 
visited did not know of its existence. 

Locally Resident Americans (LRA). The Department 
of State recently gained authority to establish compensa¬ 
tion plans for "United States citizens employed in the 
Service abroad who were hired while residing abroad." 3 
In the past, U.S. citizens residing abroad only were engaged 
as PITs or as PSCs. The Department now can create formal 
positions and establish locally derived pay scales for such 
hiring. 

The Department of State has informed overseas posts 
that there is no intention to use this authority to displace 
Foreign Service National employees or to erase the prefer¬ 
ence for PIT positions now given to American family mem¬ 
bers. The Commission welcomes this assurance. 

Nonetheless, selected use of the authority could help to 
deal with shortages of employees; the Department of State 
should survey posts to determine needs. The Commission 
found that managers in Lagos, for example, could benefit 
from having such authority available, while those in Paris 
saw less need. 

Personal Services Contractors (PSCs). The Depart¬ 
ment of State uses PSCs when a particular expertise is called 


3 Section 152(a)(1) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, 
Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993 (P.L. 102-38; 105 State. 672). 


for but the hiring of permanent staff is not needed or 
desirable. As contractors, they are not entitled to such 
employee benefits as retirement and leave and can be 
released quickly when their services are no longer needed. 
Because technically these are not Department employees 
and because they are comparatively few in number, the 
Commission did not study this labor source. 

Length of Tour Policy 

The Commission believes that the Department of State's 
recent decision to lengthen the tour of duty for many 
assignments is correct and that more should be done in this 
vein. The policy of 2-year hardship tours leads to average 
tour lengths at such posts of under 2 years, so that more than 
half of the staff turns over every year. This is not sound 
personnel practice. The Commission believes that mid¬ 
level and senior tours should be 3 years, even in some 
hardship posts, with very limited exceptions. Junior offic¬ 
ers should continue in a 2-year rotation so that maximum 
breadth of experience can be obtained prior to decisions on 
tenure. 

For many categories of Foreign Service Specialists, in 
which the need to avoid "clientitis" or to acquire a broad 
mix of skills may be largely absent, management should 
encourage tours of 5 to 6 years, as appropriate, in given 
occupations or locations. 

Creating a Flexible Workforce 

The Commission understands that new resources will 
be scarce, despite increasing needs for overseas representa¬ 
tion consequent to the creation of many new nation states. 
Greater use of innovative approaches will be needed to 
keep posts properly staffed. 

The key element is to create a more flexible workforce. 

The Commission believes the Department of State 
should strive to develop a workforce of both Foreign Serv¬ 
ice and Civil Service personnel who can serve in a range of 
positions to deal with rapidly changing situations both 
overseas and domestically. 

Creating a flexible workforce has many dimensions. 
Among them are the following. 

Workforce Planning 

The Thomas Commission strongly urged the Depart¬ 
ment of State to "stress the need for long-range planning 
[which] would allow [assessment of] the effects of demo¬ 
graphic and societal change on the systems they are respon¬ 
sible for administering and . . . changes in the mission of 


6 


Final Report 



the Foreign Service and the overseas environments in which 
it operates." 4 This Commission believes long-range plan¬ 
ning is equally important for all of the personnel systems of 
the Department, and notes that little real progress has 
occurred in this area since the Thomas Commission did its 
work. 

The Commission commends the ongoing efforts to 
identify better the need for Foreign Service generalists at 
posts; but this kind of planning must move beyond experi¬ 
mental stages and become a continuing reality for all cat¬ 
egories of personnel. 

The Bureau of Finance and Management Policy, the 
Bureau of Personnel and the Policy Planning Council are 
developing a Program Planning system which includes 
human resources. While laudable on other grounds, this 
system will not define needs for individual types and levels 
of employees. New workforce planning should augment 
the Program Planning effort. The workforce plan should 
define needs by pay plan, skills, and job levels, to guide 
hiring and recruiting in the Foreign Service, and to lend 
coherence to Civil Service personnel matters. 

Planning, Full-Time Equivalents (FTE), and 
Money Management 

The Department of State monitors employee costs by 
controlling the hours of work for which an organizational 
unit can pay. The accounting unit, known as "FTE," equals 
the full-time equivalent of 1 year's work by one person. FTE 
ceilings and related salary costs are set at bureau levels for 
all employees except Foreign Service career employees, for 
whom FTE is held centrally. 

This hybrid, partly decentralized system allows bu¬ 
reaus to add Foreign Service employees at no cost to their 
budgets or FTE ceilings, and thus creates incentives to staff 
with FS employees, even when other workers would be 
cheaper to the Department of State. A bureau which lacks 
FTE and money may be forced to choose between a FTE 
"cost free" Foreign Service person who may not be qualified 
for the position, and whose salary and benefits costs are 
likely to be higher than alternative kinds of employees, and 
leaving the job vacant. Thus the hybrid approach can work 
to the detriment of mission accomplishment. 

Decentralizing all FTE management and making re¬ 
sources more fungible would end this anomaly. Employee 
cost accounting would be more complicated; allocation of 
Foreign Service employees' time spent in training or travel 
would have to be worked out, for example. Central system 


4 Report of the Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel System, 
United States Department of State, June 1989, p. 17. 


managers would need to oversee the system, to ensure that 
resource shifts among employee categories proceeded man¬ 
ageably. That having been said, the potential gains in better 
allocation of limited human resources would nevertheless 
be substantial. 

The Commission believes it would be appropriate for 
the Department to conduct a pilot project for decentralized 
FTE and human resource cost management, involving at 
least one regional bureau and its posts. 

Recruitment 

The Commission is impressed with the ability, dedica¬ 
tion, and willingness to endure hardship of Department of 
State employees, but the Department must do better at 
becoming more representative of the American people. The 
Department is attracting good people, but there can be 
improvements. 

Targeted Recruiting and Selection for Needed 
Skills: 

Foreign Service Generalist selection involves a nation¬ 
wide examination, which produces talented candidates, 
but may not generate the mix of skills needed. Most new 
officers want to do political or economic work; few seek 
careers in administrative or consular work. Nor has the 
Department of State generated an adequate pool of minor¬ 
ity candidates. 

Fine-tuning the selection process must be combined 
with more active recruiting to shape the pool of candidates. 
The reputation of the Foreign Service generalist examina¬ 
tion is not a sufficient draw to allow it to substitute for 
targeted recruiting to attract minority candidates and/or 
persons with strong backgrounds in management. More 
resources, including increases in the recruiting budget, 
should be devoted to visiting campuses, meeting with 
potential candidates, and following up on especially prom¬ 
ising prospective employees. 

The Department of State has moved successfully to 
shorten the time between the written examination and 
entry on duty to about 8 months. However, because the 
written examination is given only once a year, the time 
elapsing between when an individual becomes seriously 
interested in joining the Foreign Service and his/her entry 
on duty still can be as much as 19 months (even when all 
steps are completed as expeditiously as possible). This can 
be a serious impediment to persevering with their 
candidatures for those who need prompt employment to 
maintain themselves and their families. 

Moreover, other employers who can move more quickly 
will be competing with the Department of State for the most 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


7 



highly qualified applicants. In addition, to be effective, 
recruiting efforts must now be concentrated in the few 
months immediately preceding the written examination. 
Candidates recruited much earlier may well withdraw 
before the screening process is completed. 

The Commission suggests that the Department of State 
systematically determine how many candidates are de¬ 
terred by this time lag from applying for the Foreign Service 
or from completing the evaluation process, and what kind 
of applicants drop out (e.g., by written test score, race/ 
ethnic group, age, academic major/occupation, language 
qualifications, and quality indicators). If this review shows 
that the Department is disproportionately losing candi¬ 
dates needed to foster diversity and to meet mission re¬ 
quirements, more steps to accelerate the recruiting and 
hiring process must be taken. For example, it would be 
helpful to schedule the written exam more often if resources 
could be found for this purpose. 

Even if research does not confirm that too many poten¬ 
tially valuable applicants are dropping out, it remains 
important to continue to refine the recruitment/examina¬ 
tion process to further expedite entry on duty. 

An additional significant source of delay in appoint¬ 
ment is the security clearance process. This cannot be 
considered sacrosanct; it should be reviewed to determine 
whether some of the more time-consuming investigative 
procedures could be performed after appointment (per¬ 
haps concurrent with orientation training) without jeopar¬ 
dizing security. 

Foreign Service Specialist recruiting produces per¬ 
sons with the needed skills, but the Department appoints 
too few specialists to fill established positions. Shortages 
mean that those on board are denied necessary training and 
home leave travel, particularly in the case of communica¬ 
tors and secretaries. The Department of State should staff 
these occupations fully, either by by hiring more people or 
by reorganizing work and redesigning positions so that 
essential functions can be accomplished within existing 
staffing levels. Here, too, more must be done to generate 
more minority applicants and hires. 

Civil Service recruiting is affected by the fact that there 
is no central program for recruiting Civil Service employees 
other than clerical workers. This contributes to 
suboptimization in the hiring, development, and use of 
Civil Service employees. A greater emphasis on Civil 
Service personnel matters within the Bureau of Personnel, 
recommended later in this report, will help in addressing 
this problem. 

Recruiting for the Civil Service now is job specific, with 
little connotation of close attachment to the agency itself. 


and a resulting weaker career commitment, in comparison 
to the Foreign Service. A separate recruiting office for the 
Civil Service would help to make the point that new em¬ 
ployees are being recruited into the Department of State 
and not into a specific bureau. This could be reinforced by 
enhanced orientation programs for new Civil Service em¬ 
ployees, as well as rotational assignments for some Civil 
Service employees in the United States and overseas, as 
discussed above (see page 5, Civil Service Rotational Tours). 

The Commission notes that the Department of State 
once had a management intern program for Civil Servants. 
The only current equivalent is the Presidential Manage¬ 
ment Intern Program, commendable but small and not 
directly associated with the Department. The Department 
should examine reestablishing its own program. 

Diversity/EEO Considerations 

Title I, Section 101(a)(4), of the Foreign Service Act of 
1980 states that "The members of the Foreign Service should 
be representative of the American people." It further states 
in Section 105(d)(1) "The Secretary shall establish a minor¬ 
ity recruitment program for the Service consistent with 
Section 7201, of Title 5, United States Code." Furthermore, 
the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 clearly states for the 
first time that "It is the policy of the United States to provide 
a Federal Workforce reflective of the nation's diversity." 
The Act establishes in law as the first merit principle that 
recruitment should be designed to achieve a Federal work¬ 
force from "all segments of society." 

The Commission noted the work of the Deputy Assis¬ 
tant Secretary of State for Equal Employment Opportunity 
and Civil Rights (S/EEOCR) and her efforts in promoting 
access of minorities and women to all positions in the 
Department of State. 

The Bureau of Personnel in recent years, under the 
personal leadership of the then Director General, has em¬ 
phasized this aspect of employee recruiting and has insti¬ 
tuted a countrywide network of individuals and organiza¬ 
tions to advise and assist in the effort. 

The Department of State has had an affirmative action 
hiring program for Foreign Service junior officers (since 
1967) and one for mid-level officers (since 1975). The Multi¬ 
year Affirmative Action Plan calls for building on the 
positive experiences from the programs. The Plan reveals, 
however, that barriers still remain to the achievement of a 
diversified workforce. They include problems in recruit¬ 
ment, hiring, training, promotions, and career develop¬ 
ment. An optimistic goal has been set that calls for elimina¬ 
tion of these identified barriers over the next 3 years. 


8 


Final Report 


Despite these efforts over the years, minorities are still 
disproportionately underrepresented in higher level poli¬ 
cymaking and supervisory positions within the Foreign 
Service. Greater efforts and more creative approaches must 
be employed to reduce this disparity. 

We recommend that more resources be allocated spe¬ 
cifically to targeted recruiting, to bring more minorities into 
the Foreign Service. Once there are recruiting successes, the 
central personnel system and the Department of State should 
ensure that these employees are given fully equal access to 
training and work assignments that will best utilize and 
develop their abilities. 

Foreign Service Mid-Level Entry Program 

The Commission supports the concept of mid-level 
entry both to provide the Department of State with skills in 
short supply and to help achieve workforce diversity. The 
Commission believes the current program would be even 
more effective if stronger emphasis were placed on recruit¬ 
ing persons who can meet unfilled needs in the professional 
ranks of the Foreign Service, such as scientific affairs offic¬ 
ers, officers with special administrative skills, contract of¬ 
ficers, and certain specialized economists. 

Such an approach would help give managers the re¬ 
sources to carry out their work and probably would speed 
progress towards a more representative Foreign Service. 
The Commission noted, however, that mentoring frequently 
is needed to assist mid-level entrants to adjust to the special 
conditions of work in the Foreign Service. In addition, the 
Department of State should take all necessary steps to assist 
these officers to fully integrate into the Foreign Service and 
the work of the Department. 

Training 

There is general recognition that existing training pro¬ 
grams are good but they are not available to all who need 
them, and additional subjects should be offered. As new 
approaches to diplomacy and the challenge of the post- 
Cold War era become better defined, it will be necessary to 
reexamine training programs with the goal of creating a 
more flexible workforce with greater emphasis on specific 
management skills. The opening of the new National 
Foreign Affairs Training Center would be a good time to do 
this. 

Maximum use of modern communications technology, 
instruction by VCR, and interactive computer programs for 
example, should also be investigated to alleviate the prob¬ 
lems of releasing essential staff for Washington-based train¬ 
ing and of courses so crowded that individuals who need 
training cannot be accommodated. 


Finally, the Department of State must make a major 
effort to ensure that employees in all categories are released 
from their regular work for appropriate training. 

On specific areas of training: 

• Tunior Officer Training . Most of the persons inter¬ 
viewed felt that the Junior Officer orientation course 
(A-100) is valuable in giving new generalists a 
sense of how the Department and overseas posts 
work, and in promoting a sense of belonging that 
adds to the esprit de corps of the Foreign Service. 

But some observers felt the A-100 course should 
focus more on the practical aspects of work over¬ 
seas. One junior officer noted that the segment in 
the follow-on Political Tradecraft Course on what 
mission members do at representational social func¬ 
tions had been the most valuable item in all of his 
initial training. Others commented that some sub¬ 
jects were introduced too early in their Foreign 
Service experience to be assimilated. The Commis¬ 
sion recommends that the A-100 curriculum be 
reviewed once again to determine if enough focus 
is placed on the practical requirements of service 
overseas. 

• Long-Term Training . The Commission supports 
long-term training for Foreign Service and Civil 
Service employees who are or will become senior 
managers, area specialists, or economists. 

The Commission commends the Department of 
State for emphasizing that employees assigned to 
long-term training should be given onward assign¬ 
ments at the outset of the training or even before. 
Training should be linked to assignments and ca¬ 
reer paths. 

Some employees believe that while long-term train¬ 
ing does develop their skills, it does not assist in 
consideration for promotion. The Department of 
State should increase the linkage between long¬ 
term training and career development, and career 
counseling should stress that appropriate training 
or lack thereof will have an impact on assignments. 

• Civil Service Training . The Commission notes that 
the Department of State in recent years has in¬ 
creased training opportunities for Civil Service 
personnel. The new organization of the Bureau of 
Personnel proposed by this Commission aims to 
provide an office responsible for Civil Service needs 
which would work with the National Foreign Af¬ 
fairs Training Center to assure that the commend¬ 
able new emphasis on Civil Service training con¬ 
tinues. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


9 





Civil Service/Foreign Service Specialist/ 
Foreign Service Generalist Conversions 

The Commission believes there should be a degree of 
flexibility among the systems and that it should be possible 
to move from one to another, provided that the candidate 
has appropriate qualifications, skills, and experience. The 
Commission would not anticipate a large number of per¬ 
manent moves among the Services. 

Currently, Foreign Service officers can apply for and be 
appointed to certain Civil Service positions in the Depart¬ 
ment without competition, thereby receiving career Civil 
Service status. This authority is used only sparingly, but 
more Foreign Service officers transfer to the Civil Service 
under competitive procedures. 

The Office of Personnel Management's agreement to 
noncompetitive conversion for Foreign Service personnel 
was contingent on the creation of a like procedure for Civil 
Servants converting to the Foreign Service. The Depart¬ 
ment of State is working on an agreement with the Office of 
Personnel Management to meet this commitment. The 
Commission applauds this effort and looks forward to its 
successful completion. 

The Commission accepts that conversion from the Civil 
Service to the Foreign Service at higher than entry levels 
may require a demonstrated ability by the candidate to 
serve successfully overseas. 

A third type of conversion is from Foreign Service 
Specialist to Foreign Service Generalist. Such conversions 
do occur, but the procedures are not well understood. Once 
again, the Commission would urge that more information 
be available to potential candidates on these procedures. 

In this regard, the Department of State might well 
consider systematically staffing the administrative general¬ 
ist function with a mix of people, including those hired as 
generalists and specialists who have shown the ability to 
perform as administrative generalists. Such an approach 
would broaden the talent pool for the difficult-to-staff 
administrative function, as well as providing greater up¬ 
ward mobility for talented specialists. 

The Commission believes that the practice of requiring 
all candidates for Foreign Service generalist status, regard¬ 
less of grade level, to take the oral evaluation could profit¬ 
ably be modified to make exceptions for persons with 
demonstrated relevant abilities. A Civil Service analyst 
who already has served overseas or a Foreign Service 
Specialist with like experience has performance evalua¬ 


tions that will yield more valid information than an oral 
interview. This aspect of the conversion process should be 
modified. 

Designation of Cones for Foreign Service 
Generalists 

Many witnesses discussed the issue of functional cones 
for Foreign Service generalists. The Thomas Commission 
had recommended that the current system of Administra¬ 
tive, Consular, Economic, and Political cones be eliminated 
and replaced with 14—"more porous"—functional special¬ 
ties. The Department of State did not concur, but did 
establish the "Multi-functional cone" to provide more flex¬ 
ibility. 

This Commission sees no pressing need to radically 
change the present conal structure. However, changes in 
the relative size of the cones may be necessary as new 
requirements flow from the increasing emphasis on eco¬ 
nomic relationships, multi-lateral diplomacy, and interna¬ 
tional environmental concerns. As one example, changes in 
science and technology have created a need for the Depart¬ 
ment of State to be better informed in these areas. 

The 1992 Carnegie Commission on Science, Technol¬ 
ogy and Government has recommended that the Depart¬ 
ment of State take immediate steps to establish its position 
as the lead agency in responding to those science and 
science technology changes affecting international rela¬ 
tions and especially political and economic issues. The 
President's Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) has 
also recognized the growing internationalization in the 
Science and Technology report to the Congress (1992). 
Furthermore, the annual report of the President of the 
National Academy of Sciences (1992) emphasized that the 
U.S. economic future will depend on regaining its strength 
in technology and science in a competitive world. 

Groups such as these and the Public Members Associa¬ 
tion of the Foreign Service call for the Department of State 
to acquire as rapidly as possible an enhanced capability in 
dealing with the worldwide issues precipitated by changes 
in science and technology. This suggests that the Depart¬ 
ment should be planning now to increase the number of 
Foreign Service generalists with scientific and technologi¬ 
cal skills. 

Cones for Junior Officers 

Two years ago, the Department began hiring junior 
officers without designating their cones, intending to allo¬ 
cate cones at the moment of granting tenure. In the absence 
of any targeted skills recruiting, a majority of officers inter- 


10 


Final Report 


viewed by the Commission and appointed since 1990 want 
to be in the Political or Economic cones. 

Most junior officers interviewed by the Commission, 
both coned and unconed, favor assigning cones at entrance, 
citing uncertain career prospects over the 4 to 5-year 
pretenure period as a drawback to the existing policy. As 
many junior officers spend most of those years doing visa 
review consular work, coning decisions will be made with 
little work having been done in any other cone. 

The Commission recognizes that the first group of 
unconed junior officers will not go through the process of 
actual designation of cones for some time. But the combi¬ 
nation of ignoring candidates' preferences and Departmen¬ 
tal skill needs at appointment and the long pretenure pe¬ 
riod devoted primarily to visa work with the inevitable 
disappointment of many candidates leads the Commission 
to recommend that the Department of State closely monitor 
this program with a view to reconsidering it if change seems 
advantageous. 

Career Development Planning 

Finally, the Commission believes that employees could 
benefit by a more sophisticated career development plan¬ 
ning process. The Commission recommends that the De¬ 
partment of State identify for employees what types of jobs 
and training they should be aiming for at given points in a 
career. 

This information exists in an informal way for members 
of the Foreign Service, but not for any other group of 
employees. Preparation of career development handbooks 
would enhance all employees' commitment to the Depart¬ 
ment of State, encourage rotation, and provide training 
guidance. The Department should give career develop¬ 
ment importance in assignments and promotions, with the 
goal of creating a more capable and flexible workforce. 

The Commission has noted the Department of State's 
new emphasis on employee Individual Development Plans 
(IDPs); it found that the commitment to implementation of 
this effort varies widely. The Commission recommends 
that the Department continue to stress IDPs. Additionally, 
it supports the recent efforts to professionalize the counsel¬ 
ing function. 

Reorganization of Human Resources 
Activities in the Department of State 

The Commission recommends reorganizing the Bu¬ 
reau of Personnel (renamed the Bureau of Human Re¬ 
sources) to increase its capacity to perform the more de¬ 
manding human resource requirements of the coming cen¬ 


tury. The recommended reorganization will permit the 
needs of the Foreign Service and the Civil Service to be 
addressed by separate staffs while being managed and 
coordinated at the Assistant Secretary level to ensure that 
both services receive the attention they deserve and that 
both staffs pursue integrative policy objectives and admin¬ 
istrative practices. 

Redefined Role for Director General of the For¬ 
eign Service 

Presently, the Director General of the Foreign Service 
wears "two hats," performing simultaneously the respon¬ 
sibilities of the Director of Personnel for the entire Depart¬ 
ment of State. The Commission has concluded that this 
dual designation with its combination of responsibilities 
for the Director General does not work to the advantage of 
meeting human resource management needs. The range of 
responsibilities presently residing in the Director General 
are, arguably, greater than is appropriate for an individual 
serving in a rotational assignment. The Commission there¬ 
fore recommends that the position of Director General of 
the Foreign Service be redefined. 

Under the reorganization of human resource activities 
in the Department of State, the responsibilities of the Direc¬ 
tor General would be redefined to provide that the Director 
General serve as a principal adviser on Foreign Service 
policy issues to the Secretary of State and the Under Secre¬ 
tary for Management. The Director General shall be re¬ 
sponsible for the personnel activities connected with Chiefs 
of Missions, some 150 located throughout the world. Fi¬ 
nally, the Director General would continue to serve as 
Chairman of the Board of the Foreign Service, thereby 
performing the responsibility of inter-agency policy coor¬ 
dinator for the entire Foreign Service of the United States. 

Creation of an Assistant Secretary for Human 
Resources 

The Commission recommends that legislation be intro¬ 
duced to establish an Assistant Secretary for Human Re¬ 
sources. This Assistant Secretary shall be responsible for 
the overall management of organizational units devoted to 
the personnel systems of the Foreign Service and Civil 
Service respectively. The duties of the Assistant Secretary 
for Human Resources would include coordination and 
integration of the two personnel systems. This position 
shall be a presidentially appointed. Senate confirmed (PAS) 
office (as is the current position of Director General of the 
Foreign Service), with the nominee being selected from 
either the career Senior Executive Service or the Senior 
Foreign Service with demonstrated competence in person¬ 
nel management. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


11 


The creation of this office of Assistant Secretary for Human 
Resources is critical to providing the type of professional, 
sustained, and nonpolitical human resources management 
leadership necessary if the recommendations of the Com¬ 
mission are to be implemented in a timely and effective 
manner. Furthermore, the person appointed to be Assistant 
Secretary for Human Resources should have demonstrated 
competence and interest in personnel management and a 
commitment to ongoing policy and operational innova¬ 
tions. It is the belief of the Commission that this office of 
Assistant Secretary of Human Resources, properly staffed 
and funded, will be a major factor in building the institu¬ 
tional capacity of the Department of State. If this office 
performs as anticipated, the internal and external pressures 
to establish ad hoc study commissions (which have been 
numerous in recent years) will diminish. 


Reorganization/Retitling of the Bureau 
of Personnel 

The Bureau of Personnel (renamed the Bureau of Hu¬ 
man Resources) itself should be reorganized to reflect the 
personnel philosophy proposed by this report. The Bureau, 
headed by the Assistant Secretary for Human Resources, 
would have two major operational divisions, one headed 
by a Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible for the man¬ 
agement of Foreign Service personnel activities and the 
other headed by a Deputy Assistant Secretary responsible 
for the management of Civil Service personnel activities. 

Reporting to these Deputy Assistant Secretaries would 
be two separate groups of offices responsible for the total 
personnel management process comprising such specific 
activities as recruiting, training, career development, and 
assignments. 


12 


Final Report 


Part 2—Detailed Response to Commission Mandate 




Commission Mandate 

Following is the text of the Commission mandate, as 
found in the Foreign Affairs Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 
1992 and 1993, and in the Conference Report on the legisla¬ 
tion. The pertinent reference in the Act is: 

# 

Public Law 102-38 —October 28,1991, the Foreign Rela¬ 
tions Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993. 

Section 150 . Commission to Study Personnel Ques¬ 
tions at the Department of State. 

(b) Implementation Report—Not later than 1 year 
after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission 
shall report to the Chairmen and ranking members of the 
appropriate committees of the Congress on the extent to 
which the Department of State has implemented the recom¬ 
mendations of the Commission authorized in section 171 of 
the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1988 
and 1989 (the Thomas Commission). 

(c) Report on Personnel Matters and Conditions— 

(1) Not more than 1 year after the date of enact¬ 
ment of this Act, the Commission shall issue a 
written report to the appropriate committees of the 
Congress on State Department personnel ques¬ 
tions affecting the effective conduct of foreign policy 
and the efficiency, cost effectiveness and morale of 
State Department employees. 

(2) The Commission report required under this 
subsection shall include the following topics: 

(A) Matters related to section 607 of the For¬ 
eign Service Act of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 4007) relating to 
senior Foreign Service officers who were working 
under section 607(d)(2) temporary career exten¬ 
sions on June 2,1990, and who, because the 14-year 
time-in-class benefit had been denied them, were 
involuntarily retired under section 607 after 
June 2,1990. 


(B) An examination of the contribution of the 
Civil Service personnel to the fulfillment of the 
mission of the Department of State, including— 

(i) recommendations as to how the needs 
and standing of such employees mightbe more 
fully recognized by the Department as full 
partners in the successful conduct of foreign 
policy; and 

(ii) recommendations as to how Civil Ser¬ 
vice positions may be better utilized or struc¬ 
tured in the Department and abroad to en¬ 
hance the institutional memory on evolving 
foreign policy issues. 

(C) A study of the management and practices 
at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, taking 
into account the recommendations of recent re¬ 
ports of the Inspector General of the Department of 
State." 

******* 

In addition, the Conference Report on the Foreign 
Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993, 
contains the following statements: 

"In its examination of Civil Service personnel in the 
Department of State, the Commission should evaluate 
the current and potential role of the Civil Service work 
force and the ability of Civil Service personnel to be 
promoted at all levels within the Department. The 
Commission should consider recommendations from 
the Department's Civil Service employees on methods 
of better integrating Civil Service personnel in the 
Department's policymaking process. 


The conferees believe that the Commission should 
examine overseas allowances, including examination 
of housing, educational, representational, and related 
allowances for overseas posts, their rationales, expen¬ 
diture for each category and type of allowance, and 
impact of allowances on morale and efficiency of For¬ 
eign Service and Civil Service employees. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


13 










The conferees also believe strongly that the Commis¬ 
sion should examine and make recommendations re¬ 
garding the anomalous standing of the U.S. Mission to 
the United Nations, including its relations to the Bu¬ 
reau for International Organization Affairs and other 
elements of the State Department, especially as these 
questions relate to personnel matters. 

The Commission should examine whether providing 
differential pay for Foreign Service employees at USUN, 
increasing base salary by 8 percent for being stationed 
in the New York metropolitan area is a permitted or 
prudent practice, and whether noncompliance with 
recommendations or suggestions of the Inspector Gen¬ 
eral or Civil Service Ombudsman have had an impact 
on morale or functioning of the U.S. Mission." 

Commission Report on Specific Issues 
in the Mandate 

Thomas Commission Report Status 

Elsewhere in the report of this Commission, we refer to 
many of the issues raised by the Thomas Commission. To 
complete this part of our mandate, this Commission asked 
the Department of State for a status report on the implemen¬ 
tation of the Thomas Commission Report. Following is the 
Department's response received by the Commission on 
October 1,1992. The Commission recommends that in its 
consideration of this report and in any hearings on the 
report, that the Congress invite members of the Thomas 
Commission to address the Department's response. 

******* 


Begin Department of State Response 


Introduction 

In its final report, the Thomas Commission warned 
against partial implementation of its recommendations. 
The report noted that "recommendations relating directly 
to the management of the system should be taken as a 
package. To deal with these recommendations piecemeal 
would reduce their effectiveness and not adequately ad¬ 
dress the problems of the personnel system." State Depart¬ 
ment management, however, in reviewing the Commission 
findings, found major problems in three areas (outlined 
below), and therefore did not implement the full range of 
the Thomas recommendations. In order to benefit from 
some of the report's suggestions, the Department imple¬ 


mented some recommendations, and not others. The areas 
in which the Department had differences with the Commis¬ 
sion are: 

1. A Single Foreign Service: The Commission wanted 
some employees of five separate agencies to report to 
the Secretary of State, through the Director General of 
the Foreign Service. The Department found this idea 
unworkable, legally unsupported, and contradicted by 
the mechanisms outlined in the 1980 Foreign Service 
Act. Moreover, implementation of this change would 
have required legislation. 

2. Limit Political Appointees: The Commission's 
promotion and workforce planning recommendations 
are all based on the premise of limiting the number of 
political appointees in senior level Foreign Service jobs 
to 12 percent of the jobs available. The Department saw 
this as an infringement on the President's authority to 
make appointments and did not accept it. 

3. A Pyramidal Position Structure: Finally, the De¬ 
partment had concerns about the Commission's view 
that the Foreign Service should more closely resemble 
the uniformed military services and be a pyramid¬ 
shaped organizational structure. The difference in 
missions and staffing bet ween diplomatic and military 
services argues strongly against such a model, and the 
Department believes that making the Department's 
organizational "shape" a pyramid would be fiscally 
impossible in today's budget climate. 


Specific Recommendations 
Nature of the System 

I. Establish an Expanded FSO Corps: 

This recommendation encompasses many subsections 
(outlined below), with a view toward the merging of all 
current FSOs, FS Specialists, and General Schedule employ¬ 
ees of all foreign affairs agencies into a single personnel 
system. That overhaul, however, was cited as a model 
"management may want to consider ... at some future 
date." (See page 14, Thomas Commission report). The 
Department has not implemented this recommendation in its 
broadest sense, and notes that this proposal was explicitly 
considered, and rejected as unworkable, during the draft¬ 
ing of the Foreign Service Act of 1980. 

A. Integrate specialists more closely into the "FSO 
Corps." As a result of this recommendation, which the 
Department supported, the Department in 1991 completed 


14 


Final Report 



a study of the specialist function and is acting on many of its 
recommendations. A number of the mechanisms for career 
mobility cited by the Thomas report already exist—the 
Mustang program, functional specialization program, and 
a scheme of developmental assignments for Civil Service 
personnel—all are means by which specialists can become 
integrated into generalist areas. 

B. Control position structure by having Congress 
set limits on the number of positions at each grade: The 
Department did not implement this recommendation, cit¬ 
ing the inefficiency of subjecting workforce planning mecha¬ 
nisms to the annual budget process, and noting that such a 
system, as it applies to the military (the model on which the 
Commission based this recommendation), dependson both 
the absence of a grievance system featuring prescriptive 
relief and of Labor-Management negotiations. 

C. Limit the number of Senior Foreign Service posi¬ 
tions to be filled by political appointees: The Department 
did not implement this recommendation because it views 
this idea as an infringement on the President's constitu¬ 
tional authority to make appointments. 

II. Authorities Under the Act 

A. Give the Director General authority over a single 
Foreign Service of the United States. The Department has 
not implemented this recommendation, citing its cost and 
its likely ineffectiveness (given Section 203 (b) of the For¬ 
eign Service Act). The Department does not see the disad¬ 
vantage of different agencies administering the Foreign 
Service Act in slightly different ways. 

B. Remove Department of Commerce's and 
Agriculture's overseas services from the Foreign Service 
system. The Department cannot unilaterally implement 
this idea, which would require a statutory mandate. Com¬ 
merce and Agriculture oppose this recommendation. 

III. Planning 

Allow for long-range personnel planning. The De¬ 
partment has not fully implemented this recommendation, 
primarily due to lack of resources. As interim measures, the 
Department has increased stability in its hiring, keeping the 
new hires protected from budget vagaries, and has contin¬ 
ued to revise a 5-year program planning exercise. The 
Department has also begun to develop a longitudinal data 
base so that we are better able to project trends in employ¬ 
ment from a single comprehensive data base. We have also 
made significant progress in developing an overseas model 
that will provide a way to more accurately address overseas 
employment. 


IV. Financial Management System 

Incorporate budget as an integral part of the person¬ 
nel system. Asa result of this recommendation, the Depart¬ 
ment is now linking budget and personnel planning. The 
Personnel Bureau and the Bureau of Finance and Manage¬ 
ment Policy work together on a daily basis in this effort. 

V. Quality of Management 

Increase understanding and involvement by all lev¬ 
els of management. The Department agrees wholeheart¬ 
edly with this recommendation, and has taken several steps 
toward its implementation: 

1. The Department proposed to bring the Foreign 
Service Institute under the auspices of the Director 
General of the Foreign Service and Director of Person¬ 
nel (M/DGP). This proposal was disapproved last year 
by the Congress. 

2. The training policy function has been strengthened 
within the Personnel Bureau. 

3. Increased training programs for the Department's 
personnelists have been developed. 

4. We have transmitted a cable to all Chiefs of Mission 
and Assistant Secretaries outlining all delegations of 
authority. 

VI. Workforce Requirements 

The Department has developed several modifications 
to its planning systems, having almost completed a needs 
assessment study of overseas staffing. While the Depart¬ 
ment ties promotions to the number of open slots at the next 
higher grade, as recommended by the Commission, it does 
so based on a 5-year average. Strict implementation of this 
recommendation would require the Department to tie pro¬ 
motion numbers exactly to the number of slots available in 
any given year. Based on historical data, the Department 
believes that such a system would cause wide swings in 
annual promotion numbers, a situation that would erode 
morale and career predictability, and would be counter to 
the Foreign Service Act of 1980. 

Career Progression 

VII. Entry Process (Recruitment/ 

Examination/Appointment) 

The Department has implemented the recommenda¬ 
tion that the time from test-taking to appointment be short¬ 
ened, settling on a goal—now a reality—of 6 to 9 months 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


15 


between exam and appointment. The Director General of 
the Foreign Service also created a network of community, 
academic, business, and religious leaders to encourage 
talented minorities to consider a career in the Foreign 
Service. Further, the Department implemented the recom¬ 
mendation that the Foreign Service test be shortened, modi¬ 
fied in content, and used more as a "screening device." 
Those changes were made in the 1990 Foreign Service 
examination, and have been carried forward. 

VIII. Tenure 

The Department has implemented: 

—a lengthened pretenure period, with the first tenure 
review held after 44 months; the second at 54 months. 

—assignment to a functional category (cone) at tenure, 
instead of at appointment. Junior officers entered 
"unconed" as of March 1990. 

In two areas the Department did not follow Commis¬ 
sion recommendations on the tenure process. Specifically: 

—The Commission recommended hiring all FSOs at 
the FS-6 level. State eliminated Junior Officer hiring 
at the FS-^4 level, but believes that because govern¬ 
ment salaries are not competitive with private-sector 
offers, they must continue hiring at the FS-5 level to 
attract quality candidates, especially minorities. 

—The Commission suggested that more junior officers 
be "hired in anticipation of the rigorous tenuring 
process and associated higher attrition rate." The 
Department views this as enormously expensive: It 
costs about $150,000 to hire and train each new FSO, 
an investment lost if an employee does not get tenure. 
The Department also rejected setting a firm number/ 
percentage of employees who will not get tenure. 
Given the vast resources devoted to testing, clearing, 
and hiring candidates, the Department relies more 
heavily on its entry process as more cost-effective in 
screening out unqualified candidates. 

—Furthermore, 95 percent of career candidates not 
granted tenure file grievances, which delay their 
separation for prolonged periods of time. Given 
Congressional unwillingness to amend statutory 
grievance authorities (see below), this fact alone would 
militate against programmed nontenuring. 

IX. Career Management 

Abolish/restructure cones and broaden career oppor¬ 
tunities. The Department instituted the multifunctional 
promotion track, which has attracted a large number of 


FSOs, and which will result in a major diminution of the 
rigidity of the cones. 

X. Career Development 

Strengthen the role of the CDO to include assignment 
responsibilities. The Department has not implemented 
this recommendation and is unlikely to do so in the near 
future. One factor in its inability to effect change in this area 
is a major difference of opinion between the Thomas Com¬ 
mission and the Inspector General on the role of the CDO. 
The Inspector General has recommended that the assign¬ 
ments function be completely separated from the career 
counseling function, and be lodged in separate office. 

XI. Career Progression: 
Promotion/Retention/Separation/ 
Retirement 

The Department has implemented a series of these 
recommendations, specifically: 

—extended mandatory time-in-grade before promo¬ 
tion consideration at all mid-level grades. 

—modified time-in-class rules for Senior FSOs. 

The Department has not sought the legislation neces¬ 
sary to eliminate the Senior "window," because it believes 
that flow-through concerns mandate a limited period for 
competition for the Senior Service. Further, the Depart¬ 
ment believes the choice to compete for promotion into the 
Senior Foreign Service should remain with the officer. 

XII. Labor-Management Relations 

Management should not belong to the bargaining unit. 
The Department has not implemented this idea and be¬ 
lieves it was based on a misperception that Foreign Service 
management officials can be active in AFSA. Current policy 
is that although any Senior FSO can belong to the union, any 
FSO in a management position (as defined in Section 1002 
(12) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980) cannot actively 
participate in AFSA management or be represented by the 
union. This recommendation is also opposed by the Ameri¬ 
can Foreign Service Association. 

XIII. Grievances 

Accelerate the process and abolish routine prescriptive 
relief. The Department has tried to implement this recom¬ 
mendation, which requires legislation, but has been op¬ 
posed by Congressional committees and the American 
Foreign Service Association in these efforts. 


16 


Final Report 



XIV. Automation 

Implement a responsive automated personnel system. 
The Department has for several years requested funds to 
revamp its current automated personnel systems. Progress 
has been very modest, however, because these requests 
have been rejected in favor of higher Departmental priori¬ 
ties. 

XV. Long-Term Societal and Environmental 
Considerations 

The Commission's recommendation of an outside study 
to address the impact on the Foreign Service of those factors 
beyond the immediate control of the Department, and to 
recommend appropriate solutions for the future, was fa¬ 
vorably received by the Department. Rather than under¬ 
take a separate study for this purpose, though, the Depart¬ 
ment is first examining demographic and recruitment- 
related studies already completed, as well as those under¬ 
way in the Office of Personnel Management, "Workforce 
2000," and elsewhere. 

* * * * * * * 


End Department of State Response 


Examination of the Contribution of Civil 
Service Employees 

Many of the present Commission's recommendations 
in Part One of this report are addressed to this part of the 
mandate. The Commission, however, would also make the 
following points: 

Haynes Commission . The Report of the Director 
General's Commission on Civil Service Improvements (the 
Haynes Commission, 1991, Appendix III) provides an ex¬ 
cellent review of the Civil Service Program. Its implemen¬ 
tation would substantially enhance the quality of personnel 
management of the Civil Service workforce. The Commis¬ 
sion notes that the Department of State formed a "Task 
Force on Civil Service Improvements" to implement the 
Haynes Commission recommendations. 

Personnel Management Evaluation (PME) . The De¬ 
partment of State lacks a formalized PME program, al¬ 
though this has been an Office of Personnel Management 
requirement for many years. Primary objectives of PME 
are: (1) to provide feedback on how well personnel man¬ 
agement activities are contributing to mission accomplish¬ 
ment; (2) to assure compliance with law and policies; and 
(3) to provide a basis for corrective actions as well as future 


workforce planning. 

A credible Personnel Management Evaluation process 
not only would have the advantage of providing the De¬ 
partment with a continuing flow of information about the 
health of personnel management, it also could well reduce 
the need for the creation of special Task Forces and Com¬ 
missions—like the present Commission—to study the per¬ 
sonnel activities of the Department. 

A PME plan has been developed but not yet imple¬ 
mented by the Department of State. Sometimes "the best is 
the enemy of the good." If full implementation of the PME 
plan requires additional resources that are unavailable, 
perhaps a more modest initiative is in order first. Evalua¬ 
tion is an evolutionary process: It takes time to understand 
what can be quantified, what can be estimated, and what 
must be guessed. The essential action is to get a Personnel 
Management Evaluation program started. 

USUN Personnel Management Issues 

The United States Mission represents the interests of 
the United States in the United Nations organizations head¬ 
quartered in New York. It operates under the provisions of 
the United Nations Participation Act, which provides the 
authority for the payment of "... salaries and expenses... 
[for] appropriate staffs, including personal services . . . 
without regard to the civil-service laws and the Classifica¬ 
tion Act of 1923, as amended..." 5 This in effect means that 
employees can be hired into an excepted service system 
outside the competitive Civil Service. 

In considering this subject, the Commission reviewed 
recent reports of the Inspector General of the Department of 
State, visited the Mission, and had discussions with present 
and past members of the Mission and the Bureau of Inter¬ 
national Organization Affairs. 

As a starting point for its examination of personnel 
management issues, the Commission considered the spe¬ 
cial nature of the Mission, as reflected in its creation by 
special legislation. The issue is: Is the Mission more like a 
U.S. diplomatic mission overseas or more like a domestic 
agency? This distinction has impact on the staffing of the 
Mission. Respondents to this question at the Mission and in 
Washington gave a range of answers to the question, indi¬ 
cating that the true nature of the Mission probably is some¬ 
where between the two models. 

The reason for raising the issue is to be able to address 
the question of the personnel structure of the Mission. 
Should it be staffed primarily by Civil Service personnel, by 


5 The United Nations Participation Act of 1945 as amended, 
P.L. 79-264, section 8. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


17 






Foreign Service personnel, or by a mix? The Commission 
concluded that because of the unique nature of the Mission, 
there needs to be a mix of Civil Service and Foreign Service 
employees. Civil servants are needed to provide continuity 
and to perform management and administrative work that 
is similar to that in other U.S. Government activities in 
New York. 

On the other hand, the United Nations and the 179 
missions accredited to it form the world's largest diplo¬ 
matic community. Foreign Service personnel have experi¬ 
ence and skills in working in diplomatic communities and 
thus make a vital contribution to the work of the Mission. 
Further, a good case was made for USUN as a training 
ground for Foreign Service officers to gain experience in 
multilateral diplomacy. 

Should the non-Foreign Service employees at 
USUN be in the Excepted Service or the Competi¬ 
tive Civil Service? 

As noted above, the United Nations Participation Act 
permits the Permanent Representative to operate an ex¬ 
cepted personnel system for the non-Foreign Service em¬ 
ployees at the mission. As a result, employees in that 
category are not in the competitive Civil Service. In 1990, 
legislation granted most members of the U .S. Government's 
excepted Civil Service rights of appeal to the Merit Systems 
Protection Board, giving them appeal rights against ad¬ 
verse actions. 

The Mission has attempted to conform in many re¬ 
spects the terms and conditions of its Excepted Service 
employees to those of regular Civil Servants. There is, 
however, no merit pay (GM System) for USUN employees 
at the GG-13 through GG-15 grade levels serving in super¬ 
visory positions, and some benefits available to Senior 
Executive Service members do not apply to those in equiva¬ 
lent Excepted positions. 

The Commission delegation met with USUN manage¬ 
ment to discuss USUN Excepted Service employees, as well 
as with a number of employees in this category. The 
Excepted Service employees expressed concern about their 
difficulty in competing for Civil Service positions in other 
agencies in New York and elsewhere because they do not 
have Career Civil Service status from employment at the 
Mission. They also report a lack of understanding in other 
governmental agencies that Excepted Service experience 
should have the same weight in meeting qualification re¬ 
quirements for Civil Service positions as experience in 
similar positions in the competitive Civil Service. 

Moreover, the Excepted Service employees wanted to 
have the opportunity to compete for all openings in the 
Department. (They would also like to have the opportunity 


to take excursion assignments in Washington and at over¬ 
seas missions; their excepted status may not preclude such 
assignments.) These employees could not think of advan¬ 
tages to them of being in an Excepted Service. 

USUN management conceded that full use has not been 
made of all of the possibilities and flexibility allowed by 
having the Excepted Service authority. They felt, however, 
that it is useful to retain if circumstances arise requiring its 
use. Further, management noted that there is a proposal 
before OPM that would effectively allow the Excepted 
Service employees to obtain Civil Service status for pur¬ 
poses of competing for Civil Service positions outside USUN. 

The Commission concludes that career-type staff of the 
current USUN Excepted Service should be converted to the 
competitive Civil Service with full comparability to other 
Civil Service employees in the Department and the Execu¬ 
tive Branch at large, and that the Commission's recommen¬ 
dations for enhancing the status of Civil Service employees 
in the Department should apply to USUN employees. 

The Commission further concludes that in the future, 
only limited use should be made of the USUN excepted 
authority in hiring new non-Foreign Service personnel in 
the Mission. Appointments should normally be made in 
the competitive Civil Service, with the excepted service 
authority used only when the Permanent Representative 
finds that its use is required to support mission accomplish¬ 
ment. Some members believe oversight will be satisfactory 
if such findings are made a matter of public record and 
reported periodically to Congress. Other members believe, 
however, that amendment to the United Nations Participa¬ 
tion Act is necessary. 

Should the USUN housing program be changed? 

The Permanent Representative is authorized by the 
United Nations Participation Act to "make available in 
New York to no more than 18 Foreign Service employees of 
the staff of the United States Mission to United Nations, 
other representatives, and no more than two employees 
who serve at the pleasure of the Permanent Representative, 
living quarters leased or rented by the United States .. 
The Permanent Representative and the Deputy Permanent 
Representative to the United Nations also receive housing 
under this legislation. The recipients (aside from the Per¬ 
manent Representative and the Deputy Permanent Repre¬ 
sentative) must contribute at least 20 percent of their base 
salary to pay for the housing. 

Congressional staff members indicated that in consid¬ 
ering the portion of the Commission's mandate dealing 
with USUN, this program should be examined. The ques¬ 
tion put to the Commission was whether the program is 
necessary to assure that personnel serving in New York on 


18 


Final Report 


a rotational basis are not financially disadvantaged by the 
posting and are able to carry out effectively their assigned 
work. 

The Delegation discussed this issue with USUN man¬ 
agement and members of the Foreign Service. It concluded 
that there continues to be a need for providing a housing 
program for those members of the Foreign Service on a tour 
at USUN and that the program benefits the Department of 
State in that it permits key Mission personnel to assume 
their duties immediately without having to spend time to 
seek appropriate housing. 

The Delegation also had the opportunity to inspect 
three typical housing units. The apartments were very 
small but did meet minimum requirements for living in 
Manhattan. 

A second question was whether persons who are mem¬ 
bers of the housing program should receive other benefits 
accruing to U.S. Government employees in New York, 
specifically. Locality Pay. The Commission concluded that 
in light of the significant financial contribution of the em¬ 
ployees for their housing, they should continue to receive 
Locality Pay, even if they are members of the housing 
program. 

Other Mandate Issues 

Section 607 Issue—Senior Time-in-Class 

The mandate requires the Commission to report on 
"... matters related to section 607 of the Foreign Service Act 
of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 4007) relating to senior Foreign Service 
Officers who were working under Section 607(d)(2) tempo¬ 
rary career extensions on June 2,1990, and who, because the 
14-year time-in-class benefit had been denied them, were 
involuntarily retired under section 607 after June 2,1990." 

This issue arose when the Department of State changed 
the Time-in-Class (TIC) rules for the Foreign Service effec¬ 
tive June 1,1990. On that date, the Department extended the 
TIC for the Senior Foreign Service from 7 years for Counsel¬ 
ors (FE-OCs) and 5 years for Minister Counselors (FE- 
MCs) to an overall Senior Foreign Service TIC of 14 years, 
with a maximum of 7 years as an FE-OC. 

The change in the TIC rules was one of the actions taken 
by the Department of State in response to the Thomas and 
Bremer ^ Commissions findings that advancement in the 
Foreign Service was too rapid and did not allow time for 
officers to gain out-of-cone experience or sufficient season- 


6 Study of the Foreign Service Generalist Personnel System, 
Department of State, May 1, 1989. 


ing at lower levels to prepare them for more difficult and 
demanding assignments, and the need to provide career 
stability and time-in-class periods, which would provide a 
full career for mid-level and senior officers. 

Fourteen serving FE-MC officers were not given the 
benefit of the extension on the grounds that their previous 
TICs had expired in 1989, that on June 1, 1990 they were 
serving on 1-year extensions granted by the Director Gen¬ 
eral of the Foreign Service, and that persons serving under 
the extensions could not legally be given the benefits of the 
new TIC. 

Some of the affected officers filed a grievance on Au¬ 
gust 15,1990 with the Foreign Service Grievance Board to 
seek relief from the Department of State's decision on the 
grounds that, since they were career members of the For¬ 
eign Service when the new policy went into effect, the 
benefits of the combined 14-year TIC should apply to them. 

The officers also presented another grievance on the 
same day on a separate matter relating to the nongranting 
of Limited Career Extensions (LCEs). The grievance on the 
TIC issue was denied by the Department of State on October 
17, 1990 and on the LCE issue on October 19, 1990. The 
Department's basic argument was that the affected officers 
were serving under an administrative extension limited by 
law to 1 year; that they had reached their TIC the year 
before; and that thus there was no legal basis to grant them 
the longer TIC. 

On October 26, 1990, the officers filed appeals of the 
decisions with the Foreign Service Grievance Board. The 
Board made its final rulings, supporting the Department of 
State's position on both issues, on February 11,1992. 

The affected officers, who had been given prescriptive 
relief and remained in the Foreign Service until the final 
decision of the Foreign Service Grievance Board, decided 
not to appeal the February 1992 decision. They subse¬ 
quently retired from the Foreign Service and the case is 
closed. 

The Commission notes that its proposal for more flex¬ 
ibility in the administration of the TIC and LCE rules 
described in Part Three (see page 23) would help keep 
members of the Senior Foreign Service available longer 
than the current TIC rules in appropriate cases, but also 
recognizes that the proposal would not have altered the 
outcome of this case. 

Allowances and Housing 

The Conference Report on the Foreign Affairs Authori¬ 
zation Act contains the following: "The conferees believe 
that the Commission should examine overseas allowances. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


19 



including examination of housing, educational, representa¬ 
tional, and related allowances for overseas posts, their 
rationales, expenditure for each category and type of allow¬ 
ance, and impact of allowances on morale and efficiency of 
Foreign Service and Civil Service employees." 

The Commission met with Department of State officials 
who manage the allowances programs, discussed the issue 
of allowances with personnel at overseas posts, and visited 
government-provided housing at posts. The posts visited 
were Caracas, Maracaibo, San Salvador, Mexico City, Lagos, 
Kaduna, Cotonou, Lome, and Paris. This gave the Commis¬ 
sion a chance to observe the workings of the allowance 
program in a wide range of situations. 

The Commission's general conclusion is that an allow¬ 
ance program related to the costs to employees and special 
circumstances of service in overseas missions is an impor¬ 
tant factor in ensuring that missions are staffed adequately, 
and that the current structure and management of these 
programs is effective and meets this objective. 

Housing Program 

Under the housing program, U.S.-based employees at 
overseas missions are provided with housing either through 
government-leased properties or by provision of a Living 
Quarters Allowance (LQA). A majority of Department of 
State employees reside in leased housing. The leased 
housing program is administered by the Foreign Buildings 
Office (A/FBO) of the Department of State. The LQA 
program is administered by the Office of Allowances 
(A/ALS). 

Ninety percent of Department of State housing is gov¬ 
ernment provided. As a result, the Living Quarters Allow¬ 
ance (LQA) applies mostly to other agencies, especially the 
Department of Defense. Rates are based on annual survey 
averages of rents and utilities at each post, with biweekly 
adjustments for exchange rate fluctuations. The rules for 
size of quarters established for government-provided resi¬ 
dences also apply to residences leased by personnel and 
reimbursed through LQA. The Commission did not di¬ 
rectly observe the operations of this allowance and believes 
that the current Department of State emphasis on govern¬ 
ment-provided housing is appropriate. 

Prior to 1979, the housing program was criticized by the 
General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the 
Department for waste, inefficiencies, and extravagance. In 
response to the criticism, the Department of State in 1979 
issued a document (Airgram A-1093) setting out housing 
policy and space standards, which was in effect for 12 years. 
It delineated space allowances, made allowances for hard¬ 
ship situations, and provided for "representational" ac¬ 
commodations. 


The program created by A-1093 also came under criti¬ 
cism for its ambiguity, abuse of the "representation" factor, 
and lack of management and enforcement focus. As a 
result, in June 1991, a new housing policy (A-171) was 
issued designed to provide adequate housing at costs most 
advantageous to the U.S. Government. It is currently in 
force and provides: 

• A three-tiered system (Executive, Middle, Standard) 
for space allowances on the basis of rank of position 
and family size only; 

• Reduces the locality index—which provides for 
space increase—from five to three categories (based 
on a scale of Washington as the lowest category (1), 
with highest category (3) being greatest hardship 
posts); 

• Eliminates the "representational" factor; 

• Provides "designated" housing for Ambassadors, 
Deputy Chiefs of Mission, Principal Officers of 
Consulates General, and Marine Security Guard 
Detachments, and "dedicated" housing for senior 
representatives of foreign affairs agencies (the For¬ 
eign Agricultural Service, the Foreign Commercial 
Service, the United States Information Service, and 
the Agency for International Development), plus 
the Department of Defense; 

• Sets a new measuring system based on usable 
living space linked to the size of housing units used 
by comparable employees in the Washington, D.C. 
area; 

• Eliminates some measuring factors other than 
square footage; 

• Provides for carrying out specific post profiles to 
include post position structure, post demograph¬ 
ics, and the impact of the local real estate market on 
the housing program; and 

• Provides for better monitoring and management of 
the program. 

The principal observed results of the A-171 policy are 
that the size of housing units has been reduced, and man¬ 
agement is more effective, largely through insistence on the 
creation of active Interagency Housing Boards at overseas 
missions. The posts visited by the Commission were aware 
of the importance of active management of the housing 
program and were following the A-171 rules very closely. 
Commissioners met with representatives of the housing 


20 


Final Report 



boards at all appropriate posts (there was no housing board 
at the smallest posts visited), with employees and with 
management at each post. 

It was clear that adequate housing is a critical factor in 
the morale and operations of posts. If employees are 
housed appropriately, their morale and general approach 
to the work of the mission is good. It appeared to the 
Commission that each of the visited posts was making a 
serious and active effort to carry out the new policy, even 
though this sometimes resulted in anomalies. For example, 
one post reported that they had to give up lower priced but 
larger residences in exchange for smaller but higher cost 
units to meet the new policy. (Representatives of A/FBO 
indicated that this should not have happened.) 

The Commission was particularly struck that in some 
of the more difficult posts, more time must be spent within 
the residence than would be the case in the United States. At 
these posts, adequate household space is especially impor¬ 
tant. In general, the Commission felt that the new policy is 
producing appropriate (in some cases very modest) hous¬ 
ing for most employees. The most common complaint 
comes from employees who would like more capacious 
housing or additional amenities and who cannot have these 
benefits even if they wish to pay for them. Since the A-171 
program is relatively new and only now is beginning to be 
fully implemented, the Commission recommends no 
changes at this time. 

Allowances 

In addition to the housing program, the Department of 
State manages an allowance program that provides 16 
types of allowances authorized under Title 5, U.S.C., to all 
U.S. Government agencies with employees overseas. The 
program affects approximately 60,000 employees of 28 
agencies—although that number may diminish with the 
reduction in Department of Defense presence overseas. 
The regulations, forms, and procedures are approved 
through an interagency process. 

Comments on specific allowances: 

Post (Hardship) Differential is granted to employees at 
posts where the "conditions of employment . . . differ 
substantially" from those in the United States. The allow¬ 
ance is based on 120 evaluation factors, such as climate and 
altitude, sanitation and disease, educational facilities, and 
violence and crime. The allowance ranges from 5 to 25 
percent of base salary and is taxable. 

The Commission visited several posts with post differ¬ 
entials and concluded that this allowance is required to help 
to compensate for difficult living situations, for dangerous 
health and medical conditions, for the uncertainty and 


tension that exists in high crime areas, and for the many 
other negative factors that can impact on employees in 
overseas posts. 

Danger Pay is granted when civil war, terrorism, or 
wartime conditions threaten employees and is granted very 
rarely. It currently is in effect for Afghanistan, Colombia, 
Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Peru, and Somalia (even though we 
do not have personnel stationed at some of these posts at 
this time). The allowance is taxable. It is additional to any 
other allowances, although the post differential usually is 
reduced when danger pay is granted because danger also is 
a factor in the post differential. 

The allowance is administered in a flexible way. When 
the Commission visited El Salvador, the allowance recently 
had been rescinded because of the peace accord in the 
country. The American employees understood that the 
danger status could no longer be justified and that termina¬ 
tion of the allowance was appropriate. 

Post Allowance (Cost of Living or COLA) is received by 
one-third of posts. This allowance is designed to assure that 
employees are not financially disadvantaged by service in 
a high-cost country. It is based on price comparison of a 
basket of consumer items compared with Washington, D.C. 
prices. It is not taxable. The Department of State has a 
complex, tested system for determining the allowance and 
for making adjustments for currency fluctuations. 

Education Allowance . By law, this allowance is keyed 
to cover items normally provided free of charge in U.S. 
public schools. The allowance is not taxable. It includes 
tuition, fees, some transportation costs, and books. It is 
administered by A/ALS in coordination with the Office of 
Overseas Schools (A/OS), which determines if local schools 
meet U.S. standards. When local schools are inadequate, an 
allowance for boarding schools is authorized. Parents have 
freedom of choice in school selection, but costs beyond the 
allowance are the responsibility of the parents. There is a 
special education allowance that complies with the Reha¬ 
bilitation Act of 1973. 

Adequate education obviously is vital in the family and 
societal aspects of service at overseas posts. It is important 
that American employees in overseas posts can provide 
adequate education for dependents at no disadvantage 
compared with their domestic colleagues. 

Foreign Travel Per Diem is granted to travelers, either 
Washington-based or assigned to overseas posts, for offi¬ 
cial travel in foreign countries. The allowance is granted in 
accordance with government-wide rules for travel and is a 
normal cost of doing agency business. It is not taxable. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


21 







Advance of Pay . Employees being assigned to overseas 
posts can apply for advance of pay to a maximum of 3 
months to cover extraordinary costs of establishing a resi¬ 
dence at the new posts and to assure the appropriate 
transfer of pay records. It is not exactly an allowance, since 
the pay will accrue to the employee (and as such is not 
taxable except as regular salary), but it is identified as an 
allowance. It is at no cost to the U.S. Government and is not 
used often. 

Separate Maintenance Allowance (SMA) provides a 
supplement to employee income if the employee's family 
does not reside at the overseas post. In some cases, the 
Department of State decides that a post will be staffed on an 
unaccompanied basis; the allowance always is granted in 
that circumstance. An employee has the option at other 
posts to serve unaccompanied and receive the allowance, 
although this decision can be made only once during a tour 
of duty. The allowance is not taxable. 

Temporary Lodging Allowance is granted to employ¬ 
ees on arrival at a new post when their permanent housing 
is not available. It is consistent with the practice of other 
organizations in dealing with employees being transferred 
from post to post. It is not taxable. 

Supplementary Post Allowance is provided to employ¬ 
ees who on arrival at a new post occupy temporary lodging 
with no kitchen facilities and provides supplemental funds 
for meals. This is another standard cost of doing business 
in a system with rotational assignments. It is not taxable. 

Educational Travel provides for the travel of depen¬ 
dents who are attending educational institutions outside 
the country of assignment. It is not taxable. It applies 
mostly to children in university-level institutions who still 
are dependents (up to their 22nd birthday) and provides for 
one round trip between post and educational institution 
per year. The allowance is consistent with prevailing 
practice in other U.S.-based organizations and businesses. 

Representation Allowance is granted to Chiefs of Mis¬ 
sion to carry out necessary representation activities in sup¬ 
port of U.S. interests in foreign countries and is an impor¬ 
tant element in the operations of overseas missions. The 
allowance is not taxable. There are general rules on the use 


of these funds, but Chiefs of Mission make individual 
decisions as to the actual distribution of the allowance at 
missions. It is an intrinsic part of the conduct of foreign 
affairs. 

The allowance has been the subject of considerable 
scrutiny by Congress, the General Accounting Office, and 
the Department's Inspector General. Close monitoring 
remains appropriate; any questionable expenditure should 
continue to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. 

Official Residence Expenses (ORE) . Chiefs of Mission 
and a few other senior representatives of the United States 
at overseas posts are provided with official residences 
designed to accommodate the conduct of large representa¬ 
tional events. As semipublic facilities and symbols of the 
status and culture of the United States, these residences are 
larger and more expensive to operate than a residence for 
private use only. The allowance is designed to reimburse 
the employee for the extra expenses generated by this 
situation. It is not taxable. The allowance is carefully 
monitored by the Department and receives intensive scru¬ 
tiny by the Inspector General. 

Transfer Allowances . These two allowances provide 
lump sum benefits to employees to meet personal needs 
necessitated by arrival at a new post and on return from 
overseas to the Department of State. They are modest in 
amount and represent a normal cost of doing business for 
an organization with rotational tours. They are not taxable. 

Evacuation Allowance is provided to employees when 
they or their dependents are evacuated from posts under 
authority of an evacuation order. It partially reimburses 
employees for lodging and meal expenses that occur as a 
result of evacuations and covers a period of up to 180 days 
after evacuation. It is not taxable. 


Commission Finding on Allowances 

The Commission believes the allowances described 
above are required for the effective conduct of U.S. interna¬ 
tional activities and recommends that no changes be made 
in the allowance structure. The program appears to be 
carefully managed both in Washington and, where re¬ 
quired, at overseas posts. 


22 


Final Report 











Part 3—Other Major Issues 





Senior Foreign Service Issues 

Size of the Senior Foreign Service 

The Commission examined the management of the 
Senior Foreign Service (SFS) with an emphasis on its overall 
size and composition, as well as procedures for monitoring 
excellence and retaining individuals with needed skills. 
The Commission believes that the Department of State 
should review the size of the SFS, in conjunction with an 
overall workforce requirements study. (See Length of Tour 
Policy on page 6.) Until such a review is completed, the 
Department will lack a basis for addressing concerns that 
the SFS is "overlarge." 

Time-in-Class and Limited Career Extension 
Rules 

The Commission does recommend that the Depart¬ 
ment of State revise its procedures for controlling length of 
service in the SFS, known as Time-in-Class (TIC) and Lim¬ 
ited Career Extension (LCE) rules. New measures are 
needed to ensure a clear match between management needs 
and the skills of senior officers in these areas. 

The Department of State has sought to influence the 
size and composition of the SFS by changing Time-in-Class 
(TIC) and Limited Career Extension (LCE) rules. Rules in 
effect before June 1,1990, set relatively short TIC limits but 
allowed selection boards to grant 3-year LCEs to a signifi¬ 
cant number of SFS members whose TICs were about to 
expire. Current rules lengthen TIC for all officers who reach 
the Minister-Counselor (MC) level but have almost zeroed 
out LCEs. Thus, most MCs now can serve a total of 14 years 
as an SFS member. By the same token, an MC who fails to 
achieve further promotion will be retired after 14 years, 
even if he or she is needed for a particular assignment. 7 

In keeping with its general philosophy that the Depart¬ 
ment of State should aim for maximum managerial flexibil¬ 


7 The Secretary may extend service of an employee serving in a job 
requiring Senate confirmation for the duration of that appoint¬ 
ment; otherwise, no such administrative extension may exceed 1 
year. 


ity in the use of human resources, the Commission favors 
linking selection board retention decisions more closely to 
managers' needs for skilled employees and urges the De¬ 
partment to consider using the TIC and LCE mechanisms 
more responsively to meet such needs. Selection boards 
might grant LCEs to employees, with the length of the LCE 
tied to need for the employee's services, i.e., for the time 
required to complete an existing tour or for an onward SFS- 
level assignment. 

Under such an approach, all employees approved for 
LCEs would receive at least a 1 year LCE, the time now 
granted as a "grace" or "transition" year after the expiration 
of TIC. Employees completing an SFS-level assignment or 
selected for a new SFS assignment would receive an exten¬ 
sion of the LCE to a time suitable to complete the current 
tour or the onward assignment in question. 

A critical element of such a system would assure that 
there is no creation of new SFS positions merely to prolong 
the careers of affected officers. The positions linked to the 
LCEs should be established positions that can not be effec¬ 
tively filled in the regular assignment cycle or, on an indi¬ 
vidual basis, positions with special requirements created 
for special purposes by the Under Secretary for Manage¬ 
ment. 

The Bureau of Personnel would track the number and 
length of LCEs thus granted, and make appropriate annual 
adjustments in hiring and promotion plans, and in TIC 
times for the SFS. 

Depending on the volume of LCEs granted, it might be 
appropriate to adjust TIC times as a way of controlling 
overall SFS numbers and further sharpening the focus of 
assignment of SFS personnel to SFS-level jobs as the crite¬ 
rion for retention. We are not recommending a liberal 
policy for granting LCEs; rather, we want to ensure that the 
Department of State does not deprive itself of critically 
needed skills by rigidly applying TICs and denying LCEs. 

Given the potential for short-term increases in SFS 
numbers arising from the initial operation of this approach, 
a phase-in during the anticipated reduction of SFS employ¬ 
ees in 1994-96 might help smooth the transition to a more 
needs-focused SFS retention system. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


23 








Foreign Service Specialist Issues 

The Department of State employs several thousand 
Foreign Service Specialists in 17 occupations. The largest 
groupings other than secretaries, who are discussed in a 
separate subsection of this report, are security officers, 
communications and information management officers, 
and a variety of administrative specialists, such as budget, 
personnel, general services, and building maintenance of¬ 
ficers. Smaller groupings include doctors, nurses, and 
various kinds of communications technicians. The larger 
groups have 500 to 1,000 employees, and are thus similar in 
size to a generalist cone. The smaller groups tend to have 
100 or fewer employees, and may be as small as 10 employ¬ 
ees. 

Specialists perform vital roles in the operation of the 
Department of State and overseas posts. The Commission 
finds that it is essential that the Department allocate appro¬ 
priate resources to the recruitment, assignment, training, 
and career development of these employees to assure that 
this important part of the personnel resource base is ad¬ 
equately staffed, is used efficiently, and receives man¬ 
agement consideration equal to the other parts of the For¬ 
eign Service. 

The Commission finds that Foreign Service manage¬ 
ment practices, with their goals of maintaining an up-or- 
out, rotational service, are typically geared to the relatively 
large number of employees working in generalist cones, or 
the three large specialty groups. Many anomalies arise 
when these principles are applied rigidly to tiny groups of 
employees. 

As noted in the body of the report (see page 6), the 
Commission questions the wisdom of applying the same 
uniform tour of duty policy to highly technical specialists as 
is applied to generalists. On the face of it, the Department 
probably has less need for frequent rotation of Foreign 
Service specialists, and indeed might see better perfor¬ 
mance if such specialists were moved less often. Especially 
when such people are in short supply, the lost work time 
associated with transfers should be minimized by granting 
longer tours. This practice also would produce cost ben¬ 
efits. 

Similar questions arise about the workings of selection 
boards and time-in-class standards for such specialties. Is 
annual review of all such employees for promotion an 
absolute necessity, given the slow rate of advancement in 
many fields? Are time-in-class standards sensible for such 
employees, as opposed to standard practices of removal for 
poor performance? 

The Commission believes that the Department of State 
should assess its management of Foreign Service special¬ 


ties, especially the smaller ones, with a view to streamlining 
its procedures wherever possible, consistent with equitable 
treatment. 

Administrative Subfunctions 

The Administrative Subfunctions, particularly the Gen¬ 
eral Services, Personnel, and Budget and Fiscal specialities, 
face a special problem in that they compete directly with 
administrative generalists for positions at the lower and 
mid-levels. The specialists feel that generalists get first 
priority for the best assignments in these fields, blocking 
advancement for the specialists. Generalists see these posi¬ 
tions as essential experience to qualify them for more senior 
and broad-ranging management positions. 

In addition, some administrative subfunction special¬ 
ists would like the opportunity to convert to the generalist 
category as they rise in the ranks and demonstrate abilities 
outside their own specialities. The Commission has recom¬ 
mended that conversions from specialist to generalist be 
systematized; it also believes that the Department of State 
should plan to fill a significant number of upper mid-level 
and senior administrative and management positions from 
this talent pool. 

One result of the increased complexity of systems has 
been to make it clear that formal qualifications are desirable 
for certain specialities. The Department of State's response 
to this has been to require documented certification for an 
increasing number of specialist positions. This has signifi¬ 
cant implications for training requirements, will encourage 
the recruitment of already-trained personnel, and will help 
to provide a larger pool of employees trained for and 
oriented toward administration and management. 

The Commission is gratified that the Department of 
State action on certification is increasing professionalism in 
those positions and recognition for employees serving in 
these increasingly technical areas. For example, recently 
recruited specialists in the Budget and Fiscal area have 
MBA degrees and have had management experience prior 
to joining the Department as specialists. For these reasons 
the Commission suggests that the Department consider 
giving first preference to certified specialists in making 
assignments to highly technical positions. 

Information Officers 

In connection with the merging of the Communications 
Officer and Systems Manager skills into the new Informa¬ 
tion Officer specialty, there is concern that the training 
needed to prepare employees for the new, broader specialty 
may not be available, either because of lack of funds or 


24 


Final Report 


because employees will not be given enough time to take 
the training. Communications officers who will have to 
compete with systems managers are especially concerned 
on this point. The Commission strongly recommends that 
the Department of State assure that the proper training is 
available to all employees in this specialty. 

Security Specialists 

The Commission was not asked to look specifically at 
the content of Department of State programs but feels it 
must comment on the impact of security policies, regula¬ 
tions, and programs on effective employee utilization. The 
growth in the security establishment over the past decade; 
new, stricter security regulations; the construction of "for¬ 
tress-like" overseas missions; and the segregation of For¬ 
eign Service National employees from their American col¬ 
leagues all have made the operation of overseas missions 
more complex and difficult. The Commission recognizes 
that these measures were necessary during the Cold War 
but suggests that the size and complexity of the security 
establishment should be reviewed in the light of the post- 
Cold War situation. 

In the personnel area, security specialists have a unique 
problem in that a majority of positions for this speciality are 
located in the United States. This makes it difficult for 
security specialists to get overseas experience and thus 
reduces their promotion possibilities. The Department of 
State should reexamine the security specialist structure to 
determine if it might be better to designate some of the 
positions now in the Foreign Service as Civil Service and to 
encourage those employees who would prefer to concen¬ 
trate on service in the United States to do so as members of 
the Civil Service. 

Secretaries' Issues 

The Department of State's secretaries—both Foreign 
Service and Civil Service—face unique issues as a result of 
changes in word processing technology, modern commu¬ 
nications systems, changes in the culture of the workplace, 
and, in the case of the Foreign Service, the increased stress 
of working in overseas environments. The Commission 
found that the nature of secretarial work is changing, often 
in ways that are not welcome to the employees. There is less 
emphasis on some traditional secretarial skills, especially in 
processing and editing documents, and more on activities 
like filing, receptionist duties, and answering telephones. 
And these changes lead to what perhaps is the most impor¬ 
tant and negative change: Secretaries are being asked to 
support larger and larger numbers of other employees. 


Foreign Service Secretaries 

In 1991, the Department of State formed a committee to 
identify key issues and concerns of Foreign Service secre¬ 
taries and concluded that these secretaries would like: 

• Predictable career progression (greater assurance 
of flow-through opportunities for promotion); 

• Enhanced responsibilities beyond the traditional 
duties of secretaries; 

• Redefinition of their roles in the high-technology 
environment with more opportunities to go be¬ 
yond traditional secretarial work; and 

• Greater professionalism and respect. 

To meet these concerns, the committee recommended 
and the Department of State accepted a secretarial package 
that would: 

• Retain the present seven grades for secretaries 
(FP-09 to FP-03), but 

• Divide the grade structure into three "bands" within 
the lower two of which noncompetitive promo¬ 
tions would be granted on the basis of a review of 
qualifications; 

• Require (and hopefully provide) specific training 
as prerequisite for promotions; 

• Make tested language proficiency a prerequisite 
for promotion to the senior level; 

• Revise job descriptions to emphasize nontraditional 
activities, particularly in the field of office manage¬ 
ment; 

• Mandate a broad range of assignments as prepara¬ 
tion for entry into the Senior Secretarial Service; 
and 

• Establish a multi-level, time-in-class limitation of 
14 years for the Senior Secretarial Service. 

The secretarial package was presented to the American 
Foreign Service Association (AFSA) in October 1991. Upon 
AFSA's agreement, it was circulated to all Foreign Service 
secretaries as Department of State policy. The Department 
made an intensive effort to bring the package to the atten¬ 
tion of all secretaries. The formal part of the process was 
completed quickly, however, and secretaries felt that they 
had been presented with a fait accompli. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


25 


The Commission discussed the package with represen¬ 
tatives of the secretarial subcommittee of AFSA and with 
Foreign Service Secretaries at nine overseas posts. Secre¬ 
tarial reaction to the package was mixed at best, with the 
employees feeling that the new program did not fully 
address many of the problems they face. They generally felt 
that the attempt to redefine the work of the secretary in 
broader terms was a positive step, but they were concerned 
about what they saw as specific weaknesses in the program. 
For example, some secretaries felt: 

• The new system of banding works to the benefit of 
newly hired secretaries but does not address the 
problems of the large number of secretaries who 
have been "stuck" at the grade of FP-05 for many 
years; 

• The training programs that are required for non¬ 
competitive promotions appear to be inappropri¬ 
ate for well-trained secretaries who enter the For¬ 
eign Service with many years of experience; 

• The required training may not be available to indi¬ 
vidual secretaries, because they will not be permit¬ 
ted the time to take the courses; 

• Language training for secretaries will be a low 
priority. 

In addition, secretaries felt the package did not address 
the goal mentioned above, of achieving greater profession¬ 
alism and respect. They were troubled that the traditional 
work situation in which they were viewed as partners with 
their supervisors had turned in recent years much more 
toward the sense that they were in some lower status than 
Foreign Service officers. 

Civil Service Secretaries 

Civil Service secretaries had less concern about the 
problem of stagnation at one grade. Those secretaries had 
the opportunity to move to different positions through their 
own initiative, with freedom to move up in the secretarial 
ranks or to move into other skill areas by bidding on open 
positions in the Department of State. Civil Service secretaries 
did, however, reflect the concerns of their Foreign Service 
colleagues about the changing nature of the work. 

The Commission found a number of Civil Service sec¬ 
retaries serving on excursion tours in overseas missions. 
The secretaries interviewed enjoyed their assignments and 
clearly made important contributions to the operations of 
the posts. There was a problem in that the process for a Civil 
Service secretary to return to the Department was not well 
defined, particularly in regard to identifying onward as¬ 
signments in the United States. 


Secretarial Coordinator 

The Director General of the Foreign Service took an¬ 
other step toward addressing secretaries' concerns in April 
1992 by the appointment of a Secretarial Coordinator in his 
own office. The Coordinator is to serve as a focal point for 
the concerns of Foreign Service secretaries worldwide and 
for providing information to them on the secretarial pack¬ 
age; the Coordinator is responsible for other matters of 
concern to both Foreign Service and Civil Service secretar¬ 
ies. Secretaries interviewed by the Commission were pleased 
with this appointment. 

Commission Findings on Secretarial Issues 

It was clear from the Commission's inquiries that the 
secretaries of the Department of State, particularly those in 
the Foreign Service, are troubled by the limited opportuni¬ 
ties in straight secretarial work; by changes that have taken 
place in their conditions of work; and by the sense that they 
are no longer considered as partners in the operation of the 
Department's offices and missions. 

The Commission believes the Department of State has 
made a good initial effort to begin to deal with the situation 
in issuing the secretarial package and particularly in its 
broader definition of the work of secretaries. While the 
Department did make a significant effort to explain the 
package, understanding of all of its elements among secre¬ 
taries still is by no means complete—more communication 
is needed. 

Perhaps the most important thing for the Department 
of State to do to make the secretarial package work is to 
ensure that secretaries get the language and other training 
that is required for advancement in the field. The Commis¬ 
sion realizes that funds for training are limited and that 
given the shortage of secretaries, allowing secretaries time 
for training will impact adversely on posts and offices. But 
it is imperative that the Department demonstrate its good 
faith at the outset by carrying out this part of the program 
and making it clear that the training is part of a continuing 
effort to implement the plan. As noted earlier, some train¬ 
ing could be packaged to be taken at posts with minimum 
time off work. 

The Department of State also should be receptive to 
constructive suggestions to make the secretarial package 
better. For example, some highly experienced secretaries 
noted that some of the required training is in fields in which 
they already are proficient. Why not have tests in these 
fields to determine proficiency, they asked. If they already 
have the skills, this would prevent their having to take 
redundant courses; would allow them to spend more time 
in their assignments; and would save the cost of this train¬ 
ing. 


26 


Final Report 


The Commission notes that its earlier recommendation 
that a program to facilitate excursion assignments of Civil 
Servants to Foreign Service vacancies applies with equal 
force to secretarial employees. 

The Commission recommends that the Department of 
State encourage Civil Service secretaries to take overseas 
assignments and that it also develop a more systematic 
program to assist them in their return to the Department. 
Civil Service secretaries also could be given short-term 
assignments in overseas missions to fill staffing gaps and 
release Foreign Service secretaries for the training required 
by the Foreign Service secretarial package. 

Foreign Service National Issues 

The Commission's mandate did not call for an exami¬ 
nation of the role of Foreign Service nationals (FSNs) within 
the Department of State's personnel system. However, the 
approximately 9,600 direct-hire FSNs, plus some 60,000 in 
other categories, constitute one of the most important ele¬ 
ments of the Department's human resource base and pro¬ 
vide vital services to our overseas posts. Many programs 
rely heavily on FSNs, and not just in subordinate roles. The 
Commissioners visiting posts in Latin America, West Af¬ 
rica, and Paris found a number of common problems affect¬ 
ing this labor force worthy of noting. We would recom¬ 
mend an in-depth review of the Department's overall rela¬ 
tionship with this loyal, vital, and valuable human re¬ 
source. 

At all posts visited, and not unlike many of the Civil 
Service employees at the Department, FSNs feel they are 
treated as second-class employees, and stated that they feel 
they are discriminated against. Some noted that their role 
in the Missions and their relationship with American col¬ 
leagues had changed for the worse since the imposition of 
stricter security regulations in the 1980s. 

FSNs are also troubled about pay—currently set by 
"prevailing practice" in the host country—and retirement. 
FSNs at all posts visited complained about delays in De¬ 
partment of State processing of wage surveys. These delays 
result in some data being outdated before issuance and 
actual pay raises—now no longer retroactive to the date of 
survey—being inadequate when they finally are imple¬ 
mented. Employees felt that frequently the wages are not 
competitive with private-sector multinational firms. 

A related FSN complaint was that American employee 
wage increases, cost-of-living allowances (COLAs), and 
other benefits are always protected, while FSN remunera¬ 
tion is one of the first items to suffer in any period of 
financial stringency. 


The Commission understands that the Department of 
State is considering revising the system for setting FSN 
wages and benefits. It urges the Department to take into 
account the impact of any new policies on FSN morale and 
overall operations. The ending of Civil Service Retirement, 
a benefit no longer available, changed the basic relationship 
of the United States to its FSN employees. In any new 
compensation package, retirement benefits should be an 
important consideration. 

In essence, it seems that these conditions are driving the 
Foreign Service National employees to reevaluate their 
whole attitude toward working for the U.S. Government. 
In the past, the Embassy often was the very best employer 
in a given country, and employment in the Embassy was a 
mark of prestige. That image is changing, and this loyal 
group of employees are looking for ways to better express 
their concerns to local and Washington-based manage¬ 
ment. 

The growing concerns of the Foreign Service nationals 
have led to formation of new employee associations within 
the last year. Their objective/purpose is not to become a 
union/bargaining agent, but rather to have a vehicle to 
stress better communication and "harmonious relations" 
within the embassies. The Commissioners were invited to 
meet with some of these associations, all of which noted that 
there were important problems across the spectrum of 
human resources management issues. 

This suggests that the Department of State is heading 
rapidly toward a period in which it must establish more 
satisfactory working relationships with the FSNs. They are 
not a segment of the Department's workforce that can or 
should be be taken for granted. More attention should be 
given to analyzing the utilization of FSNs as well as the 
compensation and benefit issues affecting this group. This 
is important, because it seems clear that the role of Foreign 
Service nationals will increase rather than decrease as the 
Department establishes its long-range planning system and 
accepts the challenges of multilateral diplomacy. 

Staffing the Visa Function 

The Commission makes these observations on staffing 
the visa function overseas and urges the Department of 
State to examine whether the continued nearly exclusive 
reliance on junior FSOs for that purpose is cost effective. 

Visa adjudication, a major overseas function of the 
Department of State, is currently staffed principally by 
untenured Foreign Service generalists serving in their first 
or second assignment. 

Service "on the visa line" has long been seen as a form 
of a "rite of initiation" into the Foreign Service officer corps. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


27 



testing new officers' adaptive capacity, allowing them to 
improve language skills, and bonding them socially into 
the subculture of the Foreign Service. The Commission 
supports this concept but has reservations about the amount 
of time new officers spend in such consular assignments. 

Visa work can be performed competently by employ¬ 
ees with ordinary good judgment and a modicum of train¬ 
ing. However, psychological pressures and resulting burn¬ 
out have been cited to argue against having the function 
performed by career visa specialists. This perception must, 
however, be tested against the apparently successful ex¬ 
periment of doing visa work at two Mexican border posts 
with permanent Civil Service employees. 

In line with its general policy of staffing the visa func¬ 
tion overseas with a nonpermanent workforce, the Depart¬ 
ment of State employs and trains Foreign Service spouses 
on an ad hoc basis and fills visa line staffing gaps with them. 
This practice is regarded as successful and is said to be on 
the rise. Other less common means of staffing visa work 
include the use of reemployed annuitants, locally resident 
Americans on part-time or seasonal appointments, and 
Civil Service visa specialists serving on exchange assign¬ 
ments. 


The Commission notes that savings associated with 
replacing junior officers on the visa line with alternative, 
more cost-effective visa workers could supply some of the 
funds needed to provide developmental pretenure work 
for junior officers, which is more useful for preparing them 
to assume mid-level responsibilities. 

Communication 

In meetings with employees and managers in the De¬ 
partment of State and at overseas posts, the Commission 
found that there is a lack of information about personnel 
policies, especially among employees. Most employees. 
Foreign Service, Civil Service, and Excepted Service, as well 
as Foreign Nationals, felt strongly that they are not being 
informed adequately on personnel matters. On the other 
hand, personnel officials were able to produce extensive 
examples of informational material disseminated to em¬ 
ployees. Obviously, there is a breakdown somewhere. 
Experience suggests that the written word alone is inad¬ 
equate to communicate complicated material; video tapes, 
for example, can often effectively supplement the written 
word. It is recommended that the Department make special 
efforts to enhance the effectiveness of upward, downward, 
and lateral communication. 


Experience makes it clear that the Department of State 
could deemphasize the role of untenured junior officers in 
visa work without compromising performance. Substitut¬ 
ing other employees would directly reduce salary and 
benefit costs, particularly insofar as locally appointed 
Americans (family members or local residents) who do not 
receive allowances, travel benefits, or Foreign Service re¬ 
tirement benefits are involved. 

Based on Commission interviews, it appears that a 
number of junior officers are serving longer in visa work 
than is ideal for developmental purposes. New officers 
begin employment "unconed," with the designation of 
their occupational specialty occurring at the moment of 
tenure, some 4 to 5 years later. Few of these officers will 
spend more than a few months to a year in work other than 
visa adjudication before the coning decision is made. 

The Commission believes the Department of State 
should consider reducing the time junior officers spend in 
visa work and increasing opportunities for them to gain 
experience in political, economic, administrative, or other 
consular work. 

The Department of State might seek to define the mini¬ 
mum amount of visa work that suffices for providing the 
desired orientation and socialization to Foreign Service life, 
and then adjust its intake and assignment plans for junior 
officers and alternative visa workers accordingly. 





Nicholas Veliotis, 
Chairman 


Ronald C. Moe, 
Member 




Member 




rYLs 


Ersa H. Poston, 
Member 


Herbert Harrington, Jr., 
Member 




Torre y S. Whitman, 
Member 



Andrew M. Kramer, 
Member 


October 28,1992 


28 


Final Report 





Appendix I 


Methodology: Description of Work of 
Commission—Meetings, Trips Abroad, 
etc. 

1. On March 23,1992, Under Secretary for Manage¬ 
ment John F.W. Rogers announced the formation of the 
Commission on State Department Personnel (CSDP) and 
presided at a swearing-in ceremony for the Commission¬ 
ers. On March 27,1992, a Department Notice was issued to 
all employees of the Department of State, the Agency for 
International Development, the United States Information 
Agency, and the Arms Control and Development Agency 
that welcomed the views of all employees. Input from all 
employees was solicited in an article in State Magazine 
discussing the creation of the Commission. 

2. The Commission Chairman met with members 
and staff of the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on 
International Operations, with individual members of the 
House of Representatives and the Senate, and with the 
Majority and Minority Staff Directors of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee. 

3. Commission staff solicited the views of Congres¬ 
sional Committees through discussions with staffs of the 
House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Rela¬ 
tions Committee, the House and Senate Appropriations 
Committees, and the House Post Office and Civil Service 
Committee. Commission staff offered to meet with any 
other interested Congressional staff and expressed an inter¬ 
est in arranging any desired meeting between the Commis¬ 
sioners and members of Congress. Commission staff re¬ 
ported to the Commission on the results of these consulta¬ 
tions at the first Commission meeting. 

4. Commission staff met with a number of individu¬ 
als to collect information and solicit views. These meetings 
included Office of Management and Budget examiners, 
representatives of Department of State Foreign Service 
secretaries. Foreign Service Specialists, and other groups 
engaged in related studies, such as the Under Secretary for 
Management's Task Force—State 2000, and the George¬ 
town University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy study, 
"The Foreign Service in 2001." 


5. The Commission held formal meetings at its office 
in Columbia Plaza. These meetings were the primary 
means of information collection and discussion for the 
Commission. At the meetings the Commission received 
briefings and testimony and formulated Commission con¬ 
clusions and guidance to staff for further research. Persons 
interviewed included: 

The Under Secretary for Management 

Management of the Bureau of Personnel 

Thomas Commission members 

Central Intelligence Agency Personnel Manage¬ 
ment 

Haynes Commission members and Implementa¬ 
tion Staff 

Foreign Service Allowances Management 

Overseas Housing Program Management 

The Civil Service Ombudsman 

Representatives of the Office of the Inspector 
General 

Representatives of the American Foreign Service 
Association 

Panel of Civil Service members 

Executive Secretary of State 2000 Task Force 

The Director of the Office of Career Develop¬ 
ment, Assignments and Training 

The Director of the Office of Recruitment, 
Examination and Employment 

6. The Commission decided it was important to have 
first-hand knowledge of embassy operations, living and 
working conditions, and to obtain input from a variety of 
members of the Foreign Service and Foreign Service Na¬ 
tional employees at those embassies. The Commission 
decided to split into two groups, with half going to Latin 
American posts and the remainder to African posts. The 
Commission worked with the executive offices of each of 
the regional bureaus, taking into,account trip costs, post 
variety, travel time, local conditions, and other factors. 
Prior to travel the Commission met with the Regional 
Executive Offices for post-specific briefings. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


29 









At each post, the Commission had extensive meetings 
that included (but were not limited to) the Chief of Mission, 
the senior Administrative officer, and all components of 
administration, communicators, secretaries, junior officers. 
Foreign Service nationals, spouses of FSOs, systems man¬ 
agers, consular function management. Part-time Intermit¬ 
tent Temporary (PIT) employees, post housing committee 
representatives, and others wishing to provide input to the 
Commission. 

Latin America 

The Commission traveled to Caracas and Maracaibo, 
Venezuela, San Salvador, El Salvador, and Mexico City, 
Mexico. These posts represent large and medium-sized 
embassies, an embassy in transition, and a small constituent 
post. The Commission received excellent input from those 
at the posts. In addition, the Commission gained first-hand 
knowledge of how difficult and sometimes dangerous life 
in the Foreign Service can be. 

West Africa 

The Commission traveled to Lagos and Kaduna, Nige¬ 
ria, Cotonou, Benin, Lome, Togo, and Paris, France. These 
posts also represented a range in size and functions. In 
addition to the obvious contrast of regional differences, the 
Commission was exposed to posts where development is 
an important part of U.S. policy. The Commission gained 
invaluable insights by seeing these posts firsthand. 

7. In carrying out the mandate requirement to exam¬ 
ine the management practices of the United States Mission 
to the United Nations, the Commission met with the current 
and immediate past Permanent Representatives to the 
United Nations, the Deputy Representative to the Security 
Council, and the present Minister-Counselor for Adminis¬ 
tration. A group of Commissioners traveled to New York 
to meet with management and staff of the United States 
Mission to the United Nations. 

8. One or more Commissioners obtained data and 
input from several additional sources. These included (but 
were not limited to): 

• Office of Personnel Management —Staff and man¬ 
agement from the Personnel Systems and Over¬ 
sight group provided information on their obser¬ 


vations of the Department of State personnel sys¬ 
tems and the status of the OPM-mandated pro¬ 
gram of Personnel Management Evaluation, which 
is intended to provide structure and guidance for 
managers of personnel systems in the Federal gov¬ 
ernment. 

• A gency for International Development (AID) — 
Management of the AID Office of Human Re¬ 
sources Development and Management met with 
Commissioners to explain their approach to orga¬ 
nization of the personnel management function, 
union representation, and the use of Foreign Ser¬ 
vice and Civil Service personnel. 

• United States Information Agency (USIA) —Com¬ 
missioners met with the Associate Director for 
Management and staff of the Office of Personnel. In 
addition to organization and union representation, 
USIA officials briefed the Commissioners on State- 
USIA coordination on management of the Foreign 
Service system and of Foreign Service nationals at 
missions abroad. 

• Foreign Service Oral Examination —The Commis¬ 
sion had an opportunity to observe the full day oral 
examination open to those who have passed the 
written examination. In addition to the test admin¬ 
istration, Commissioners observed the rating and 
scoring of test results. 

• Union Representatives —In addition to meeting 
with AFSA on several occasions, the Commission 
discussed union representation with the State De¬ 
partment Labor-Management Negotiator and with 
representatives of three unions representing Civil 
Service and Excepted Service employees. 

9. The Commission drew upon these experiences, 
observations, briefings, and input to derive findings and its 
approach to preparation of this report. Commissioners 
made proposals for the final report in Commission meet¬ 
ings and used the meetings to suggest modifications of each 
draft. The Commission operated on the basis of consensus 
in reviewing drafts. The Commission presented a Sum¬ 
mary of Major Findings to Department of State manage¬ 
ment in advance of publication but did not seek departmen¬ 
tal approval or clearance. 


30 


Final Report 







Appendix II 



V_ J 


United States Department of State 

Report of the Commission 
on the Foreign Service 
Personnel System 

June 1989 



Commission on State Department Personnel 


31 








Table of Contents 


Members . iii 

Mandate . 1 

Executive Summary . 3 

Assessment of Problem. 7 

Summary of Findings . 11 

Analysis and Recommendations . 14 

Nature of the System. 14 

Foreign Service Act of 1980 . 14 

System Analysis. 14 

Authorities Under the Act. 16 

Planning. 17 

Financial Management System. 18 

Quality of Management. 18 

Workforce Requirements. 19 

Entry Process. 21 

Recruitment/Examination/Appointment. 21 

Tenure . 22 

Career Management. 23 

Career Development. 25 

Training. 26 

Assignments. 27 

Career Progression. 28 

Promotion/Retention/Separation/Retirement. 28 

Labor Management Relations. 32 

Grievances. 32 

Automation. 33 

Long-Term Societal and Environmental Considerations.. 33 


32 


Final Report 




























Implementation. 36 

Legislative Changes. 37 

Glossary/Explanation/Terms . 41 

Appendices 

I. Interim Report. 43 

II. Acknowledgments. 53 

III. Correction of Foreign Service Personnel 

Records. 58 

IV. Promotion of Foreign Service Officers. 59 

V. Proposal for a Foreign Service 

Recruitment System. 61 

VI. Functional Categories. 63 

Charts 

I. Workforce Structure. 20 

II. Workforce Requirements. 23 

III. Workforce Distribution Profile. 24 

IV. Career Promotion Flow. 29 


Commission on State Department Personnel 33 















Members 

Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel System 


John M. Thomas, Chairman 

Former Assistant Secretary of State for 
Administration 

Alfred L. Atherton, Jr. 

Former Director General, Ambassador to 
Egypt, and Assistant Secretary of State 

M. Graeme Bannerman 

Former Staff Director, Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee 

Ersa H. Poston 

Retired Vice Chair, U.S. Merit System 
Protection Board; Former Member, 
International Civil Service Commission; and 
Former President, New York State Civil 
Service Commission 

Pat L. Schittulli 

Civilian Personnel Director, U.S. Air Force 


34 


Final Report 


Mandate 


The 1988—89 Foreign Affairs Authorization Act directed the Secretary of 
State to appoint, in consultation with the Senate Foreign Relations, 
House Foreign Affairs, and House Post Office and Civil Service Commit¬ 
tees and the exclusive employee representative organizations, a five- 
member Commission to review the Foreign Service personnel system. 

The Authorization Act directed the Commission to: 

conduct a study of the Foreign Service personnel system, with a view 
toward developing a system that provides adequate career stability to 
the members of the Service. 

The legislative history of the amendment indicated that Con¬ 
gress intended “career stability” to be interpreted in the broadest pos¬ 
sible way. The Commission was to address the range of personnel issues 
that impact upon the ability of the Foreign Service to conduct United 
States foreign policy. 

In approaching the fulfillment of their mandate, the Commis¬ 
sioners have not equated “career stability” with “lifetime career secu¬ 
rity.” Rather, they have determined that a Foreign Service career should 
be governed by a personnel system that (1) is predictable, stable, and 
consistent and (2) is fair and equitable and provides members of the 
Service an opportunity for professional satisfaction and meaningful 
public service. 

In considering the overall mission of the Service, the Commission 
took as its definition Title I, Chapter 1, Section 101 of the 1980 Foreign 
Service Act, which provides: 

• that a career Foreign Service is essential in the national 
interest to assist the President and the Secretary of State in conducting 
U.S. foreign relations; 

• that the scope and complexity of foreign affairs have height¬ 
ened the need for a professional service that will serve the interests of 
the United States in an integrated fashion; 

• that the Foreign Service must be preserved, strengthened, and 
improved in order to carry out its mission effectively in response to the 
complex challenges of modem diplomacy and international relations; 
and, 

• that the members of the Service should be representative of 
the American people; aware of the principles and history of the United 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


35 


States; informed of concerns and trends in American life; knowledgeable 
of the affairs, cultures, and languages of other countries; and available to 
serve in assignments throughout the world. 

Finally, the Commission has taken note of and welcomed recent 
remarks by Secretary Baker: 

... our diplomacy requires highly trained professionals, whose skills are 
up to the task of developing and executing programs and policies suited 
to the times.... The President and I recognize and we appreciate and 
value the contributions that Foreign and Civil Service professionals 
have made to the foreign policy of the United States of America for 
many, many generations. They carry on the tradition of those who have 
made post-war United States foreign policy an amazing success 
story. We also understand, I think, the deep reservoir of talent, of 
experience and wisdom that is available in this building as well as in 
our embassies, consulates, and missions abroad.... 


Executive Summary 

The 1988-89 Foreign Affairs Authorization Act established a five- 
member commission to review the Foreign Service Personnel System. 

The enactment of this legislation resulted from concerns that the Foreign 
Service personnel system was not producing and retaining the numbers 
of individuals with the requisite skills to best advance American national 
interests. 

The Commissioners met with Congressional members and staff; 
State, Agency for International Development, United States Information 
Agency, Foreign Agricultural, and Foreign Commercial Service manag¬ 
ers; employee representative groups; groups of employees; and individu¬ 
als. In addition, they solicited the views in writing of Foreign Service 
personnel stationed overseas. The Commissioners also met with Secre¬ 
taries of State Vance, Shultz, and Baker and other individuals concerned 
with the Act of 1980 and the Foreign Service in general. Finally, the 
Commissioners familiarized themselves with the mission of the Foreign 
Service as set forth in Title I of the Foreign Service Act of 1980, which 
affirms the importance of a career Foreign Service to the national inter¬ 
est. 


The Commission concluded that there are failings in the Foreign 
Service personnel system and the implementation of the Act of 1980 that 
are not only having an impact on the individuals involved, but are begin¬ 
ning to affect adversely the conduct of American foreign policy. The 
Commission further concluded that career stability is lacking under the 
Foreign Service personnel system as it operates today, and that this has 
contributed to an erosion of the attractiveness of the Foreign Service and 
a diminution of commitment to the Service as a career. This trend is 
most clearly seen in the shortage of expertise in key areas and of quali¬ 
fied individuals wanting to fill some of the most important positions in 
the Service—those of Political and Economic Counselor at major posts. 
The Commission fears that, should present trends continue, the ability of 
the Foreign Service to promote American interests in the future will be 
seriously impaired. 

While aware that many of the problems faced by the Foreign 
Service are beyond the control of its managers and not directly related to 
the personnel system, the Commission does think the implementation of 
the Foreign Service personnel system contributes significantly to the 
problem. 

The Commission found that a failure to manage the personnel 
system as an integrated whole is an underlying problem. This is true in 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


37 


individual agencies, where there is often no correlation between different 
aspects of the overall system to ensure that the right people with the 
right training are available to fill positions at the time needed and at the 
appropriate grade. It is also true between agencies. Although State, 
USIA, AID, the Foreign Commercial Service, and the Foreign Agricul¬ 
tural Service all utilize the personnel system established by the Foreign 
Service Act of 1980, which sought compatibility, each agency implements 
the Act differently. Clearly, some agencies appear to have been more 
successful than others in the management of their personnel system; 
none escaped criticism. 

The Commission first developed a model that would incorporate 
the characteristics of the closed, bottom-entry, up-or-out, rank-in-person 
system envisaged in the Foreign Service Act. This model would apply to 
all Officers in the Foreign Affairs agencies, a departure from the separa¬ 
tion into generalist and specialist categories that has been a source of 
divisiveness and confusion within the system for many years, particu¬ 
larly at State. It would change promotion rates to a more measured pace 
commensurate with a competitive but stable career in a pyramidal 
structure. 

A fundamental restructuring is required to conform the Foreign 
Service personnel system to this model and ensure an integrated system 
within each agency and a single, compatible Foreign Service among 
agencies. To this end, the Commissioners make a series of recommenda¬ 
tions. In doing so, they emphasize that the recommendations relating 
directly to the management of the system should be taken as a package. 
To deal with these recommendations piecemeal would reduce their 
effectiveness and not adequately address the problems of the personnel 
system. 

Among the Commissioners’ recommendations: 

• Establish an expanded FSO Corps. 

• Institute a long-range personnel planning capability. 

• Executive management of the personnel system requires that 
long-range budgeting be an integral part of the personnel system. 

• All levels of management must increase their direct role in 
personnel decision-making and accept personnel management as part of 
their day-to-day responsibilities. 

• The management and direction of Foreign Service personnel 
policy need to be separate from the administration of the personnel 
system of each agency. The Director General of the Foreign Service, 
under the direction of the Secretary of State, should assume responsibil¬ 
ity for policy direction, and a separate Director of Personnel should be 
appointed for each Foreign Affairs Agency. 


38 


Final Report 


• The Department of Commerce’s and Agriculture’s Overseas 
Services should be removed from the Foreign Service System. 

• A workforce/position structure must be specifically defined. 

All hiring and promotion numbers must be set against this defined 
position structure. 

• In defining the workforce/position structure for the Service, a 
reasonable and constant percentage of all domestic and overseas posi¬ 
tions at the Senior Foreign Service level (e.g., 12 percent) should be set 
aside for non-career appointees. This is necessary in order to remove a 
destabilizing variable from the planning process. 

• Time of recruitment must be shortened to six months or less. 
Recruitment should be targeted to attract more women, minorities, and 
younger Americans. 

• Tenuring should be a more rigorous evaluation, which would 
occur after 6 years. 

• Cones should be abolished in order to broaden career opportu¬ 
nities. 

• Greater emphasis should be placed on career planning, with 
the role of the Career Development Officer enhanced. 

• Training should be improved, take place regularly throughout 
the career, and be required for advancement. 

• The needs of the Service must prevail in the assignment 
process. Overseas assignments must be filled first. Both domestic and 
overseas assignments should be lengthened. 

• The number of promotions should be limited to the number of 
positions at each grade. Promotions would be to actual vacancies. 

• The Senior window would be eliminated. 

• Promotion competition at all grades would be class-wide. 

• Service on Selection Boards, with the exception of the public 
member, would be limited to the Senior Foreign Service, and service on 
Selection Boards viewed as a major aspect of Senior Officers’ career 
responsibilities. 

• The measured rate of promotion envisioned by the Commis¬ 
sioners would largely obviate the need for Limited Career Extensions. In 
transition, Officers of Counselor rank would still have a seven-year time- 
in-class limit. Minister-Counselors would have a total period of 12 years 
in the Senior Foreign Service. 

• Management should not belong to the bargaining unit. 

• The grievance process should be expedited and prescriptive 
relief modified. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


39 




• Individual members of the Service should be responsible for 
keeping their personnel records current. A Records Correction Board 
should be established to resolve differences rather than referring those 
issues to the Grievance Board. 

• A fully automated personnel system should be established in 
order to ensure timely, effective, and responsible human resource ad¬ 
ministration. 

• The Director General, in consultation with the agency person¬ 
nel directors, should develop a competitive and rewarding career track 
with greater mobility for members of the Service not included in the 
system defined by the model described above, i.e., secretaries and other 
support staff. 

• Finally, the Commissioners noted that most of these recom¬ 
mendations can be implemented under current law. A few will require 
additional legislation and/or amendments. 


Assessment of Problem 


Legislative Views 

The Commission first went to Capitol Hill and met with those individu¬ 
als most conversant with the legislative history of their mandate to 
determine the legislative intent. 

Congressional concerns that led to the adoption of this provision 
fell into two broad categories. First, the Foreign Service personnel 
system appeared to be producing neither the people necessary to meet 
current challenges faced by the United States nor those able to face 
tomorrow’s problems. Secondly, the Foreign Service Personnel System 
appeared unfair, capricious, and unpredictable. As a result, a high 
degree of discontent and unhappiness marked current attitudes among 
Foreign Service personnel. According to many of the authors of the legis¬ 
lation, such problems, if not addressed, could reduce the effectiveness of 
the implementation of American foreign policy. 

Much to the surprise of Congressional sources, the situation had 
become worse rather than better since passage of the Foreign Service Act 
of 1980. Whether the 1980 Act was flawed or the implementation of the 
Act was the cause of the difficulties was not clear. The Act was not 
fostering the intended results. 

The greatest concern expressed by those with whom the Commis¬ 
sioners spoke was that the Foreign Service personnel system was not 
producing Officers possessing the necessary expertise and experience to 
meet future challenges. Over the next two decades, the United States 
will face more complex international challenges. The bipolar world of 
the 1950s no longer exists, and the multipolar world that replaced it is a 
much more difficult one in which to operate. International issues with 
which the United States must contend are more complicated: interna¬ 
tional debt, the environment, multilateral disarmament, nuclear non¬ 
proliferation, chemical weapons, etc. These issues will have to be ad¬ 
dressed at a time when resources available for the conduct of foreign 
policy are dwindling. Some on the Hill warned that failure by the 
Foreign Service to meet these challenges adequately would place the 
foreign affairs agencies at a disadvantage in competing for scarce re¬ 
sources. While the Foreign Service’s importance will surely increase as 
future challenges become more complex, its ability to meet those chal¬ 
lenges is doubtful. 

The personnel system alone cannot be blamed for perceived 
shortcomings; nevertheless, ways in which the system functioned were 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


41 


believed to contribute to the problems. At this point, the concerns among 
Congressional observers became anecdotal. They were worried that the 
level of expertise in the Foreign Service was not what it should be. The 
system did not produce the regional, economic, and technical specialists 
necessary to meet current challenges. Specifically, the number and 
quality of Soviet specialists and Arabists are cited as not able to meet the 
needs of the country. 

The Congressional view is that Foreign Service Officers do not 
understand the American political context and how to relate effectively 
to the Congress. This failure to understand Washington brings into 
doubt their ability to understand other cultures. Moreover, reports had 
been received on the Hill that a rigidity had developed in the personnel 
system that inhibited the Foreign Service from adapting in a rapidly 
changing world. Finally, the Foreign Service in general, but the State 
Department in particular, appeared to have lost sight of its purpose. 

More and more resources were being expended on administrative and 
security-related issues and less on the conduct of foreign policy. 

The second area of concern was the Foreign Service Officer’s 
apprehension regarding career prospects and opportunities. This appre¬ 
hension would have, if it had not already had, a serious impact on the 
conduct of American foreign policy. Congress, as the conduit of public 
opinion into the governing process, had been subjected to many com¬ 
plaints from frustrated Foreign Service Officers. Personnel representing 
the entire range of Officers had approached their friends and representa¬ 
tives on Capitol Hill. The concerns raised in these meetings were usu¬ 
ally not special pleading for an Officer’s own case, but concern for the 
Service. The contention was that the personnel system was creating 
anomalies that did not serve the national interest. 

The capabilities and dedication of individual Officers were widely 
noted. As one Congressional staff member observed, “...the institution is 
much less than the sum of its parts.” Something is clearly wrong when 
the jobs that should be at the heart of the organization—Political and 
Economic Counselors in major countries—had few willing contenders. 
Promotion and advancement did not appear to be the reward for taking 
assignments and developing skills necessary for advancing the national 
interest. 

Congressional observers readily agreed that many of the prob¬ 
lems faced by the Foreign Service were the result of societal changes and 
other external events beyond the control of those who administer the 
system. Nevertheless, the feeling was widespread that the personnel 
system, rather than helping meet these challenges and helping the 
Foreign Service adapt, actually worsened the situation. 




Executive Branch and Employee Views 

Following its sessions on Capitol Hill, the Commission met with manag¬ 
ers of the foreign affairs agencies and a cross-section of Foreign Service 
and General Schedule personnel. It also met with former Secretaries of 
State Cyrus R. Vance and George P. Shultz and with Secretary of State 
James A. Baker III. The Commission spoke with the American Foreign 
Service Association (AFSA) and the American Federation of Government 
Employees (AFGE) and held public meetings. In addition, meetings 
were held with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of 
Personnel Management. 

The Commission was struck by the nearly universal concern that 
the Foreign Service was going through a difficult period. The most 
optimistic observers, a distinct minority, believed that this period was 
coming to an end. Most believed serious problems continued to exist and 
offered constructive observations on how the system could be improved. 

The employees with whom the Commission spoke were concerned 
that the effect of the 1980 Act would be to cut short their careers, either 
through the operation of the SFS window or through failure to be se¬ 
lected for an LCE at the expiry of their SFS time-in-class (TIC) limits. 
These employees cited not only the personal hardships forced early 
retirement would entail, but also the loss to the Service of capable 
Officers with needed skills. They noted in particular that the effect of 
the window and existing SFS TIC limits was to penalize fast-risers who, 
under current regulations, cannot carry with them their unused mid¬ 
grade and OC TIC allotments. 

Employees also expressed concern about the absence of concrete 
guidance on how to structure their careers so as to enhance their com¬ 
petitiveness for promotion and LCE selection to ensure that they would 
not fall victim either to the window or SFS TIC limitations. They noted 
the corrosive effect the competing interest of senior and 01 Officers had 
on Service cohesion, as seniors sought to extend their careers and 01s 
hoped for more generous senior attrition and the increased promotion 
opportunities this would afford 01s facing the expiry of their windows. 

Employees were also critical of State’s cone system, which they 
felt forced employees into rigid categories and limited their assignment 
options. Both Foreign Service specialists and GS personnel were con¬ 
cerned by the lack of upward mobility opportunities for non-FSOs. 
Employees also worried that the Service was losing its expertise in 
critical areas relative to domestic agencies and that further foreign 
affairs functions would be lost to these other agencies. 

Some agency managers with whom the Commission spoke urged 
that some time be allowed to pass before additional major changes in the 
Foreign Service personnel system were contemplated. The managers 
noted that the agencies and their employees had only begun to accommo- 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


43 




date the impact of the 1980 Act. The Act, they urged, should be allowed 
some time to prove—or disprove—itself before further changes were 
made. 

On a more specific level, managers expressed concern that the 
current employee-driven assignment system did not ensure that the 
Service’s most able employees were filling its most difficult positions. 
They noted in particular distortions in the bidding process caused by 
employee perceptions of what jobs would make them most competitive 
across the senior threshold or within the SFS. 

The rising age of Foreign Service entrants was also widely 
viewed as problematic, as was the overly long period from initial contact 
to appointment for successful recruits. The District Court’s finding that 
a portion of the Foreign Service written examination discriminated 
against women underscored the need management already felt to de¬ 
velop a sound, legally valid examination procedure that would facilitate 
more rapid entry of qualified applicants into the Service. 

Managers also commented on the need to strike an appropriate 
balance between the retention of experienced Officers and the provision 
of adequate advancement opportunities for highly talented, more junior 
personnel. Similarly, they cited the need for balance between the num¬ 
ber of political appointments and the use of career personnel. 

EEO was much on the minds of agency managers. While they 
noted that the Foreign Service today was more representative of the 
diversity of the American people than it had been in the past, managers 
were acutely aware of the difficulty the Service continues to have in 
recruiting adequate numbers of blacks. They expressed hope that the 
Commission might offer specific recommendations in this regard. 

Managers also encouraged the Commission to examine the 
impact of societal change on the Foreign Service personnel system. 
Looking ahead to the year 2000, they urged the Commission to consider 
how the Foreign Service might accommodate the needs of a changing 
U.S. workforce. 


Summary of Findings 

The Commission concluded that failings in the Foreign Service personnel 
system and implementation of the Act of 1980 not only impact on indi¬ 
viduals involved, but are beginning to affect the conduct of American 
foreign policy. This is most clearly seen in the lack of expertise in key 
areas and the dearth of qualified individuals bidding for some of the 
Service’s most important positions—Political and Economic Counselor 
positions in major posts. The Commission fears that, should present 
trends continue, the ability of the Foreign Service to promote American 
interests in the future will be seriously impaired. 

While fully aware that many of the problems faced by the For¬ 
eign Service are beyond the control of its managers and not directly 
related to the personnel system, the Commission does think the imple¬ 
mentation of the Foreign Service personnel system contributes signifi¬ 
cantly to the problem. The underlying difficulty of the current system is 
the failure to treat it as an integrated whole. Decisions appear to have 
been taken in specific areas—determining time-in-class, granting Lim¬ 
ited Career Extensions, tenuring, training, etc.—without regard to 
impact on the entire system. 

Although State, the United States Information Agency (USIA), 
the Agency for International Development (AID), the Foreign Commer¬ 
cial Service, and the Foreign Agricultural Service all work under the 
Foreign Service Act of 1980, which sought compatability to the maximum 
extent practicable, each Agency has implemented the Act differently. 

For example, AID is the only agency effectively utilizing the selection-out 
process for relative performance. Clearly, some agencies appear to have 
been more successful than others in the management of their personnel 
systems; none escaped criticism. The most severe problems and con¬ 
cerns rest with the Department of State. 

The Commissioners’ principal findings were the following: 

• The management and direction of Foreign Service personnel 
policy needs to be separated from the administration of the personnel 
system of each agency, with the Director General of the Foreign Service 
assuming the former responsibility on behalf of the Secretary of State, 
and the latter responsibility lodged in a separate Director of Personnel 
for each foreign affairs agency. 

• With regard to the legislation itself, the Commissioners 
concluded that the 1980 Act provided adequate flexibility for the man¬ 
agement of those agencies, although they did identify certain elements of 
the Act requiring amendment. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


45 




• The authority granted to the Secretaries of Commerce and 
Agriculture to utilize the Foreign Service personnel system should be 
repealed. The Commissioners judge that the Foreign Commercial 
Service, Foreign Agricultural Service, and Animal and Plant Health 
Inspection Service do not and, because of their small size and specialized 
functions, cannot conform to the closed, bottom-entry, up-or-out person¬ 
nel system envisaged in the 1980 Foreign Service Act. 

• The managers of the agency personnel systems face an almost 
impossible task. Management does not have direct control of hiring, 
promotion, or termination of employment. Independent boards make 
crucial promotion and termination decisions under precepts negotiated 
with the exclusive employee representative. Each basic process, more¬ 
over, appeared to be distinctive without regard to the other. In other 
words, the personnel system is not integrated and is difficult to admini¬ 
ster. 

• Even taking into account these limitations, management did 
not use all of the instruments provided to it by the 1980 Act. For ex¬ 
ample, Limited Career Extension (LCE) authority was written into the 
law so that the managers could identify and retain those people with 
skills needed by the Service. State managers did not give explicit in¬ 
structions to the Boards on what skills were needed by the Service. AID 
used the LCE authority as a bridging measure to provide a more sensi¬ 
tive and beneficial way to bring to a close an employee’s career. In most 
instances, the LCE was not used to identify and retain individuals with 
skills needed by the Service. 

• No effective workforce requirements systems were established 
by agency managers. As a result, career development, promotions, 
training, and assignments were determined without clear relation to 
agency goals and objectives. 

• The recruitment process, though rigorous, does not necessarily 
produce the employees best suited for a Foreign Service career. The 
recruitment period, which oflen lasts more than 18 months, discourages 
minorities, women, and younger recruits who need employment. The 
gradual increase in the average age of entry into the Foreign Service to 
nearly 32 is not a good development. Recruitment needs to be targeted 
in order to obtain the proper mix of skills and a broader representation of 
the American people. 

• The tenuring process as currently constituted serves no 
purpose. The prevailing wisdom is that the examination process is so 
rigorous that anyone who survives it should be tenured unless some 
egregious action occurred. The Commission disagreed, thinking several 
years of performance a better determinant than any two-day examina¬ 
tion. 


• The cone system, rather than assuring that the proper mix of 
Officers is promoted to the senior ranks of the Service, has become an 


institutional straitjacket limiting career development. The Service 
would be better served by a system that rigorously determined skills 
needed and promoted Officers who had the skills and experience most 
suited to meet the needs of the Service. 

• The Open Assignment (bid) system, as generally applied, has 
turned the assignment process upside down. A system has been created 
whereby more often than not the needs of the individual are placed 
above the needs of the Service. To a large extent, this is a self-defense 
mechanism, because the personnel system does not appear to reward 
those who sacrifice personal and family concerns for the good of the 
Service. 


• Career development is inadequate. Because no clear inte¬ 
grated workforce structure has been established, employees are uncer¬ 
tain what path will lead to productive careers. Therefore, Officers 
become their own career development officers, basing their judgment on 
the accepted wisdom of the day. 

• Training is seldom rewarded and is often effectively penalized. 
No correlation has been established between training and assignment 
and promotion, or even how well one performs in one’s next position. 
Training must be upgraded and rewarded. 

• Assignments outside one’s own agency are not rewarded and 
often are effectively penalized. Regarding the promotion of interests in 
Washington, the Department of State is one of the least effective agen¬ 
cies. Serving tours at other agencies or with Congress should be a 
prerequisite for promotion rather than an impediment. 

• Following the passage of the 1980 Foreign Service Act, rapid 
rates of promotion have proven incompatible with the provision of full 
careers of those employees who reach the mid-ranks of the Service and 
who remain competitive. With an Officer reaching the Senior Foreign 
Service in 15-16 years, a 30-year career is not statistically sustainable 
unless half of all Foreign Service Officers are in the Senior Foreign 
Service. 


The Commission concluded that the foregoing problems have 
contributed to lack of stability in the Foreign Service personnel system. 

To remedy these problems, the following section of this report 
sets out the Commission’s analysis and a proposed model for the person¬ 
nel system as it would apply to Foreign Service Officers. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


47 


Analysis and Recommendations 

Nature of the System 

Foreign Service Act of 1980 

The Act establishes a personnel system for the Foreign Service of the 
United States composed of (a) Foreign Service Officers appointed by the 
President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and (b) other 
members of the Service appointed by the Secretary of State or the heads 
of other agencies using the Foreign Service personnel system (the Agency 
for International Development, the United States Information Agency, 
the Foreign Commercial Service of the Department of Commerce, and 
the Foreign Agricultural Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspec¬ 
tion Service of the Department of Agriculture). 

For Foreign Service Officers of all agencies, the Act envisages a 
closed, up-or-out personnel system. Under such a system, entry occurs 
at the bottom ranks and advancement through the ranks is based on a 
process of peer competition, under which those who are judged noncom¬ 
petitive or who fail to meet prescribed time-in-class limits, as determined 
by independent boards appointed by management, are separated from 
the Service. 

System Analysis 

Establish an expanded FSO Corps. In considering how the nation’s 
foreign affairs function might best be staffed, the Commissioners con¬ 
cluded that the ideal structure would involve the integration of all 
foreign affairs agency personnel into a single system with two main, sub¬ 
ordinate categories. The first category would be a closed, rank-in-person, 
bottom-entry system. The other portion of the model would be an open, 
rank-in-job system to include all non-Foreign Service personnel and 
present General Schedule employees. The Commission thought that at 
some future date, management may want to consider pursuing this 
model of an integrated personnel system. They concluded, however, that 
it was preferable at this time to concentrate on problems in the present 
system that require early attention. 

The bulk of the Commission’s report deals with the definition 
and management of the closed personnel system applicable to FSO’s. 

The members were concerned, however, that the larger personnel system 
encompassing all non-officer Foreign Service employees also provide 
competitive and rewarding careers for secretaries, communicators and 
other support staff (i.e., members of the Service described in (b) above). 


The Commissioners believe that this goal could be accomplished 
by building into the system an opportunity for those employees to seek 
training in and assignments to other Foreign Service functions and 
eventually, at the option of the individual, to request consideration by 
the Tenure and Commissioning Board for commissioning as FSOs in one 
of the functional categories outlined in Appendix VI. These employees 
would thus have the choice of advancing through their own career 
structures outside the closed FSO system or, at the 05 level, of being 
considered for entry to that system together with the untenured Junior 
Officers who were approaching the end of their period of probationary 
service. Those support employees not selected for commissioning would 
be free to continue their careers in their original functions. 

With regard to the closed portion of the Foreign Service, the 
Commissioners believe the time has come to revise markedly the defini¬ 
tion of which members of the Service constitute the Foreign Service 
Officer Corps. Their recommendation is for a far more inclusive Officer 
Corps than has existed heretofore, reflecting the changing mission of the 
Service and the greater variety of skills needed to accomplish it. 

The Commissioners’ proposal represents a significant departure 
from the traditional way of looking at Foreign Service employee catego¬ 
ries, which has divided Foreign Service Officers broadly into two groups 
with little mobility between them. These groups were at an earlier time 
in the history of the Service designated as the Foreign Service Officer 
Corps and the Foreign Service Staff Corps, and today are referred to as 
generalists and specialists. The Commission found this distinction 
ambiguous, confused, divisive and in many respects anachronistic. 

The model the Commission has developed takes as a point of 
departure the premise that Foreign Service employees are part of one 
system whose role is to support the overall mission of the Service and of 
the agencies of which it is a part, as outlined in Section IV.C of the 
Commission’s Interim Report. This requires the broad range of func¬ 
tional categories outlined under Career Management (see p. 23) as well 
as a hiring and career development process that will ensure a correlation 
between workforce requirements in all categories on the one hand and 
Officers with expertise to fill those requirements on the other. All 
Officers will develop expertise in certain functional categories as they 
advance in the Service; in this sense, all will have specialized. Those 
who aspire to and succeed in advancing through a highly competitive 
process to the senior ranks of the Service and senior positions managing 
the missions of their agencies will need to develop an increasingly broad 
base of experience and skills. 

While clearly not all Officers will reach the senior ranks and 
many will spend much of their careers in one or more functional catego¬ 
ries, the goal would be a Service in which the opportunities for lateral 
mobility both within and between agencies and therefore for advance¬ 
ment would be much greater than is now the case. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


49 


The Commissioners would also stress that certain personnel 
management principles must apply to the operation of a closed, bottom- 
entry personnel system, whether the more inclusive FSO Corps they 
advocate or the more restrictive one that has traditionally existed. Such 
a system presupposes the existence of a stable, well-defined position 
structure in which workforce requirements (i.e., personnel needed to fill 
jobs) are specified by number, rank and skills. In the case of the Foreign 
Service, the Commissioners believe that this position structure, once it 
has been defined, can best be controlled by having Congress set limits 
through the budget process on the number of positions each agency can 
have at each grade. 

Similarly, if agency managers are to know in fact how many 
senior positions will be available to be filled by career employees, there 
must be a specific limit on the number of Senior Foreign Service posi¬ 
tions to be filled by political appointees. The Commissioners believe that 
a limit of twelve percent on non-career appointments to SFS positions, 
including Ambassadorships, would be reasonable and in keeping with 
Sec. 304 of the 1980 Act which stated that “...positions as Chiefs of 
Mission should normally be accorded to career members of the Service...” 

The Commissioners would emphasize that a closed personnel 
system can function only if the number of employees needed at each 
grade and the kinds of skills they should possess are spelled out in 
advance and if those definitions remain stable over time. This allows 
agency managers to recruit and develop employees so that 15 years down 
the road, the needed employee will be at the appropriate rank with the 
skills and experience required to do the job. 

Authorities Under the Act 

Give the Director General authority over a single Foreign Serv¬ 
ice of the United States. The Foreign Service Act of 1980 provides 
that “under the direction of the President, the Secretary of State shall 
administer and direct the Service and shall coordinate its activities with 
the needs of the Department of State and other agencies” (Section 201), 
that “the Director General of the Foreign Service shall assist the Secre¬ 
tary of State in the management of the Service” (Section 208), that “the 
Service shall be administered to the extent practicable in a manner that 
will assure maximum compatibility among the agencies authorized by 
law to utilize the Foreign Service personnel system” (Section 203(a)), and 
that “the President shall establish a Board of the Foreign Service to 
advise the Secretary of State on matters relating to the Service, includ¬ 
ing furtherance of the objectives of maximum compatibility among 
agencies authorized by law to utilize the Foreign Service personnel 
system and compatability between the Foreign Service personnel system 
and the other personnel systems of the government” (Section 210). In 


practice, however, each agency has interpreted and administered the Act 
independently and in its own way. There is no integrated, overall 
direction in the administration of the Service. 

In the Commission’s view, the intent of the Act to create one 
Foreign Service has not been realized. To achieve the objective of having 
one Foreign Service of the United States, the Commission believes that 
the authority of the Secretary of State over the Service needs to be 
clarified. The management and direction of Foreign Service personnel 
policy need to be separated from the administration of the personnel 
system of each agency, with the Director General of the Foreign Service 
assuming the former responsibility on behalf of the Secretary of State, 
and the latter responsibility lodged in a separate Director of Personnel 
for each foreign affairs agency. (To eliminate the ambiguity inherent in 
current legislation in this respect, the Commission recommends under 
Implementation, p. 36, that Section 203(b) of the Foreign Service Act of 
1980 be repealed.) 

Remove Department of Commerce’s and Agriculture’s overseas 
services from Foreign Service system. The Commission noted that 
neither the Foreign Commercial Service nor the Foreign Agricultural 
and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services conformed to the 
closed, bottom-entry, up-or-out personnel system envisaged by the 
Foreign Service Act. The Commission doubted that, given their small 
size and specialized functions, they would be able to conform to that 
system in such a way as to become integral parts of a single Foreign 
Service. (The Commission recommends under Implementation, p. 36, 
that Section 202 of the Foreign Service Act be amended to repeal the au¬ 
thority granted the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Com¬ 
merce to utilize the Foreign Service personnel system.) Appropriate 
compensation should be provided this small group when serving over¬ 
seas. 

Planning 

Allow for long-range personnel planning. The Commissioners 
would stress the need for long-range planning as an intrinsic element in 
effective human resources management. Long-range planning would 
allow agency personnel managers to assess the effects of demographic 
and societal change on the systems they are responsible for administer¬ 
ing and to take into account changes in the mission of the Foreign 
Service and the overseas environments in which it operates. This is 
particularly important in a closed personnel system in which the indi¬ 
viduals recruited today are expected to be capable of adapting to and 
performing the duties required 10-20 years hence. Only long-range 
planning can forecast future agency missions and, thus, appropriate 
employee development. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


51 



The personnel model the Commissioners have developed is an 
integrated one in which each step in the personnel process is linked to 
the rest. Proposed changes in individual segments are thus effectively 
viewed from the perspective of all other segments in the process. An 
effective computer modeling capacity is essential if personnel managers 
are to be in a position to make informed decisions. 

Financial Management System 

Incorporate budget as an integral part of personnel system. 
Effective management of the personnel system outlined in this report 
demands a responsive budgetary process. The system cannot be man¬ 
aged effectively, and stability of the system cannot be attained, if its key 
features are subject to annual budgeting fluctuations. Recruitment, 
promotions, retirements, assignments, transfers, and training are all 
integral parts of the system. If the resources to support any of these 
features are not available, the system will falter. System managers have 
to be able to project costs with a high degree of reliability, and the 
Foreign Service needs to consider these projected system requirements 
as essential costs of doing business. At the same time, sufficient flexibil¬ 
ity in the overall budget system is essential for personnel surges or 
contractions based on changing mission requirements. 

Quality of Management 

Increase understanding and involvement by all levels of manage¬ 
ment. Effective implementation of the personnel model the Commis¬ 
sioners have developed will require an increased emphasis on training, 
both of employees assigned full-time to the personnel function and of line 
managers throughout the agencies. The Commissioners stress the need 
for thorough and effective training of Career Development Officers 
(CDOs) to enable them to carry out the increased responsibilities their 
positions will entail under the assignment system the Commissioners 
propose. The same is true for all those assigned to the personnel man¬ 
agement function, including Personnel Officers abroad. Administration 
of the kind of sophisticated, closed, up-or-out system the Commissioners 
recommend will depend on the development of a cadre of professional 
human resource managers who bring both expertise and experience to 
their tasks. 

At the same time, this system calls for agency managers at all 
levels to play a more direct role in personnel decision-making and to 
accept personnel management as an integral part of their day-to-day 
responsibilities. To play their roles effectively, managers will need 
training both in personnel management techniques and in the specifics 
of the system they are responsible for administering. Such training is 
particularly important for those who aspire to the senior ranks of the 
Service. 







Workforce Requirements 

Set hiring and promotion numbers against a defined position 
structure. As indicated under System Analysis (p. 14), the closed 
personnel system specified by the Act must be based on mission-driven 
workforce requirements and the personnel management essential for 
flow-through from intake to separation. Two basic principles are nec- 
esssary to sustain a closed system: 

• There must be more qualified Officers at a given grade than 
can be advanced to the next; and 

• Success must be compatible with long-term tenure for the 
individual Officer. 

Also basic to the effective management of a closed personnel 
system is a specifically defined workforce requirements/position struc¬ 
ture. Historically, the number of promotions in a given cycle has been 
determined by management, based on anticipated vacancies at the next 
level. This has resulted in more Officers at certain ranks than available 
positions. For example, in 1988, five Officers were promoted to Career 
Minister, raising the total to 55, although only 32 Career Minister 
positions were identified. Over the previous five years, the number of 
Career Minister positions occupied by career Foreign Service Officers 
fluctuated between 28 and 32. As a consequence, a number of Senior 
Officers were not assigned to Career Minister positions and some occu¬ 
pied positions designated for lower ranked Officers. 

If system managers are to be able to calculate workforce require¬ 
ments accurately, the percentage of non-career Senior Foreign Service 
positions, to include Ambassadors, should be limited to no more than 12 
percent of the total number of Senior Foreign Service positions author¬ 
ized by Congress within the foreign affairs agencies. 

The position structure of the Foreign Service will have to be 
modified. Over time, anomalies have developed. For example, more 
positions are designated Minister Counselor than Counselor. Other 
positions are clearly overranked. The Commissioners believe, for in¬ 
stance, that as a rule Office Director positions should not be designated 
Senior Foreign Service. The Foreign Service position structure must 
more closely resemble a pyramid. 

The restructuring of positions will allow mid-level Officers 
greater responsibility. This is particularly important if Foreign Service 
careers are to provide challenging growth opportunities in a more meas¬ 
ured promotion system. 

Chart I (p. 20) illustrates the workforce structure the Commis¬ 
sion considers most appropriate for Foreign Service Officers. There 
would be three broad delineations of FSOs: untenured Junior Officers at 
grades 06 and 05; the mid-ranks (grades 04-01), which would encompass 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


53 





both the journeymen levels of grades 04-02 and the program direction/ 
execution/management stratum at the 01 level; and the Senior Foreign 
Service (Counselors, Minister-Counselors, and Career Ministers). At 
grades 02-04, Officers would be assigned to a primaiy functional cate¬ 
gory (see Career Management, p. 23), but would be required to serve in 
other functional categories both to advance into the Senior Foreign 
Service and to be considered for promotion within the mid-grades. Such 
a system would ensure that Officers develop sufficient expertise in their 
primary functional area to be fully proficient in it, while developing the 
broad multifunctional background essential to effective performance at 
the senior ranks. 

Chart II (p. 23) illustrates the workforce requirements structure 
for FSOs in terms of positions. While the specific figures shown on this 
chart are illustrative, effective workforce management demands the 
development of a position structure that is specifically defined and 
carefully validated. Hiring and promotion numbers must be set against 
such a structure in order to effectively assign people. The Commission¬ 
ers found that the lack of such a firmly defined position structure for 
FSOs was central to many of the agencies’ personnel management 
problems. 


CHART I 

Workforce Structure 



05-06 


Untenured Junior Officers 


























Chart III (p. 24) illustrates the workforce distribution profile of 
the FSO Corps that would result from the successful implementation of 
the Commission’s recommended personnel system. In the out-years, 
each year-of-entry cohort (represented by the vertical bars on the chart) 
would be composed of individuals at several different grades, with fast- 
risers advancing slightly ahead of norm and slower-movers somewhat 
behind. Retirement would occur, as shown, when an Officer reached the 
maximum years-of-service limit for his or her rank, failing promotion to 
the next grade. (The years-of-service maximums shown on this chart are 
illustrative.) 

With these structures in place, it is possible to turn now to the 
various steps that would make up the life cycle of an FSO. 


Entry Process 

Recruitment/Examination/Appointment 

Six months from recruitment to appointment. While the Commis¬ 
sioners were impressed by the intellect and motivation that entering 
Junior Officers bring to the Service, they were concerned by the exces¬ 
sive length of the recruitment/examination/appointment process. The 
one- or two-year period from initial contact with the prospective em¬ 
ployee to appointment most likely causes the Service to lose many prime 
candidates, particularly minorities, to competing employers who can 
move more quickly. In addition to the delay between application and 
entry, knowledge about careers in the Foreign Service is not widespread 
among minorities. Current difficulties in recruiting sufficient numbers 
of entry-level minority Officers, most especially blacks, are reflective of 
past years of non-entry at any level in the Foreign Service. At State, 
only four percent of FSO’s and two-and-a-half percent of Senior Officers 
are black, reason enough to reconsider the entry process. 

The Commission proposes as a substitute a recruitment system 
that targets prospective candidates in the 22-28-year age bracket with 
education, experience, or expertise relevant to the Service’s needs in the 
broadest sense. In 1987, the U.S. District Court for the District of 
Columbia ruled that the political functional field segment of the written 
examination had a disparate impact on women. The Commission pro¬ 
poses that a shorter version of the written examination (primarily the 
general background and English expression segments of the existing 
test) be used to screen candidates’ basic qualifications for the Foreign 
Service. Successful exam-takers would be notified within 30 days and 
invited to submit SF-171s, college transcripts, and other materials 
bearing on their specific qualifications and academic and work experi¬ 
ence. Those qualified for the Foreign Service would be interviewed to 
assess motivation and suitability. Successful candidates would be 
offered employment contingent on completion of background checks and 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


55 


medical exams. The goal would be to shorten the recruitment/examina¬ 
tion/appointment process to 6 months or less. Through changes in the 
tenuring process (see below), the selection process would ultimately rely 
more on performance than on 2 days of examinations. 


Tenure 

Set pre-tenure period at six years. Currently, the principal screening 
of new Officers occurs prior to their appointment as untenured Officers, 
and tenuring within four years is virtually ensured. The Commissioners 
question whether the current emphasis on pre-entry screening is as 
predictive or cost-effective as one based on on-the-job performance. For 
this reason and for the sake of shortening the entry process as described 
above, the Commission recommends that the Department shift the 
weight of its selection process to an assessment of the Officer’s perform¬ 
ance during his period of untenured service. 

This would require several fundamental changes in the condi¬ 
tions of service for untenured Officers. Appointment would be at the 06 
level for all Officers, with salary steps calculated on the basis of level of 
education and prior work experience. The pre-tenure period would be set 
at six years, during which an Officer would be rotated through a variety 
of assignments, both domestic and overseas, in a range of functions. At 
the commencement of the pre-tenure period, all Officers should attend 
the same basic training program (currently the A-100 Course). More 
Officers would be hired in anticipation of the rigorous tenuring process 
and associated higher attrition rate. This tenure process would deter¬ 
mine an individual’s suitability for a full Foreign Service career. 

The Tenure and Commissioning Board would be limited in the 
number of Officers it could approve for tenure based on the number of 
vacancies and needed skills to complete staffing of the Service at the 
mid-level. The Board would base its decision on the Officer-Candidate’s 
performance file, which would include additional materials, including the 
results of an oral assessment process, personal interviews with the 
candidate, or the results of written examinations testing job skills 
acquired in pre-tenured service. In addition, each Officer-Candidate 
would have to possess a 3/3 level competence in a foreign language. The 
Board’s decision would be either to tenure the candidate and promote 
him or her to 04, or to require the candidate to leave the Service. This 
would ensure that those leaving the Service short of full careers would do 
so at an age when their prospects for outside employment are greater 
and their financial responsibilities limited, alleviating some of the 
problems arising from the current emphasis on the senior threshold. 

Assignment to a Foreign Service functional category would also 
occur at tenure. Assignment to functional categories would be based on 
the Officer’s record of performance over the period of untenured service. 


56 


Final Report 


CHART II 


Workforce Requirements 
(Positions) 



Tenured 

Foreign 

Service 

Officers 


^Percentage of tenured FSO corps at each grade. 


Individual preference would be considered, as well as the recommenda¬ 
tions of previous supervisors, but final responsibility would rest with the 
Board. 


Career Management 

Abolish/restructure occupational groups (e.g., cones) and 
broaden career opportunities. The Commissioners found that State’s 
existing cone system, which divides FSOs from entry to the senior 
threshold into four virtually airtight compartments—Administration, 
Consular, Economic and Political—to be artificial and overly rigid. In 
particular, they were concerned by the current practice of assigning 
cones at entry, before the individual has any real knowledge of the work 
of the Foreign Service and before the Department has had an opportu¬ 
nity to judge the Officer’s on-the-job performance. 

Beyond that, the Commissioners found the excessive rigidity of 
the cone system and the lack of opportunity for cone changes to be 
frustrating to the individual who had either been “mis-coned” at entry or 
whose interests had changed since joining the Service. More serious, in 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


57 




















chart III 

Workforce Distribution Profile 


Retirement for 02s not 


promoted 


Employees 

300 ■ 

250- 
200 — 

150 — 

100 — 

50 - 


rJ 




04 


Retirement for OU 
not promoted 

Retirement for OCs 
not promoted 

Retirement 
forMCs not 
promoted 


Mandatory 

retirement 

for all 

a 


10 15 20 

Years of Service 


25 


30 


35 


♦Rank composition of cohort with 17 years of service. 


35 

32 

30 

26 

22 

18 

6 

Years of service 


CM 

MC 

OC 

01 

02 


Class 


Tenure 


*♦03 not promoted to 02 will be retained for 2 additional years to reach retirement 
eligibility. They will not be considered for promotion during that period, however. 


the Commission’s view, is the fact that the current system discourages 
the individual from seeking precisely the kind of cross-functional experi¬ 
ence needed to serve effectively in the broad generalist ranks of the 
Senior Foreign Service. The institution of the multifunctional promotion 
track has helped in this regard, but the Commission believes that all 
Officers, not just a few, need to develop cross-functional skills if they are 
to perform effectively at grades 01 and above. 

































































































In place of the cone system, the Commission recommends the 
establishment of a number of functional categories at grades 04-02. For 
State, these categories might consist of Administrative Management, 
Personnel Management, General Services, Financial Management, 
Security, Information Systems Management, Consular, Economics, 
Finance and Economic Development, Labor Affairs, Political Affairs, 
Politico-Military Affairs, Science and Technology, and Narcotics Control. 
(See Appendix VI.) Unlike the current cones, these categories would be 
permeable. An Officer would in fact be required to serve in more than 
one category during his or her mid-level career to be eligible for promo¬ 
tion both within the mid-grades and into the Senior Foreign Service. 

Career Development 

Strengthen the role of the CDO to include assignment responsi¬ 
bilities. The Commissioners found absent an integrated career develop¬ 
ment and planning process for all State Foreign Service Officers. The 
lack of such a process requires employees to determine what mix of 
training and assignments is most advantageous on their own. Not 
surprisingly, advantage is usually measured by promotions rather than 
by the good balance of skills and experience needed at the most senior 
levels. 

To remedy this, the Commissioners recommend a major revamp¬ 
ing of the entire career management system, from the structure of the 
mid-levels of the Service, to the role of the Career Development Officer, 
to the nature of the assignment process. For the sake of clarity, a 
hypothetical FSO will “walk through” this proposed system. 

The newly promoted FSO—4 meets with the Career Development 
Officer (CDO) responsible for career management of mid-level FSOs in 
his or her particular category. For continuity, this CDO remains in that 
job for three or four years, receives extensive training in career develop¬ 
ment and counseling, and lays out for the client the pattern of assign¬ 
ments and training that an Officer in this category could expect to follow 
in the mid-ranks. For a State Economic Officer also trained in Japanese 
language, for example, that pattern might include a mix of domestic 
assignments in the regional bureau, the economic bureau, and other 
agencies, plus advanced area training at a university and repeated tours 
in Japan, including an assignment to a consular/administrative position 
at a constituent post. Similar “career paths” would exist for other kinds 
of employees with other regional expertise. The CDO is responsible both 
for counseling the individual on career path specifics and for managing 
the Officer’s career so that the appropriate mix of training and assign¬ 
ments are made available. 

With a more measured pace of advancement dictated by mini¬ 
mum time-in-class and years-of-service requirements, the individual 
would be encouraged to seek the appropriate mix of training and cross- 
functional experience without concern for the impact of such “out-of-the- 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


59 








mainstream” assignments on immediate chances for advancement. 
Selection for such assignments and training would send a strong signal 
to promotion boards that the individual was being groomed for broad 
managerial responsibilities at the senior ranks. 

Training 

Increase and improve training. Strong disincentives to training are 
built into current assignment and promotion systems. Like many of 
their interlocutors, the Commissioners think that the single most distin¬ 
guishing feature of the Foreign Service should be its area/language 
expertise, since it is pivotal to the Service’s effective discharge of foreign 
policy goals in foreign cultures. The Commissioners also recognize that 
the complexity of the current foreign policy agenda, its increasing techni¬ 
cal and scientific content, and the growing need for fiscal and real 
resource accountability demand high levels of expertise in areas not 
traditionally associated with foreign affairs. But the Department of 
State has not accepted this inherent responsibility. Training in human 
and financial resource management, for example, should be mandatory 
for all Officers who aspire to the senior ranks. 

A renewed commitment to training is an essential element of 
career development. Changes the Commissioners recommend in the 
agencies’ career management system (the development of career paths 
involving regular periods of training) and promotion system (a measured 
pace of promotion with regular opportunities for training before an 
Officer becomes eligible for promotion) will greatly enhance the training 
function. Since training will have a budgetary impact, both in terms of 
the funds to be expended and manpower required, and in view of its 
critical importance to the development and functioning of the kind of 
Foreign Service the nation needs, the Commission suggests Congress 
and the Executive Branch cooperate to fund any additional costs. 

The Commissioners recognize that training is of two essential 
varieties—training in specific job-related skills (whether language, 
information systems, consular, etc.), and training designed to broaden 
and prepare an employee for additional or more senior responsibilities 
(attendance at the Senior Seminar or National Defense University, for 
example). While rewards for specific job-related training may be easier 
to implement, the Commissioners recommend that agencies reward 
employees in terms of assignments and promotion for participation in 
both kinds of training programs. Current perceptions of training as 
something to be avoided because of delayed promotion consideration 
must be replaced by an attitude of distinction, an indication that man¬ 
agement has found the employee of such high potential that a further 
investment in training resources is warranted. Monetary incentives may 
play a role in language training and maintenance, but training should 
also carry a strong message of potential that would be taken into account 
by Promotion Boards. 


60 


Final Report 


Assignments 

Needs of the Service must prevail. The Commissioners were con¬ 
cerned that the present “open assignments” system, which proceeds on 
the basis of expressed individual assignment preferences, gives less 
weight to Service needs and career development imperatives than to 
individual perceptions of what constitute “fast track” assignments or 
desirable posts. The development of career management paths for em¬ 
ployees would obviate the need for a bid-based system. Officers would 
express preferences to their CDOs, ensuring that extenuating personal 
circumstances and family responsibilties would be taken into account. 
But the needs of the Service, and not individual bid lists, would initiate 
the revised assignment process. 

The career development and assignment functions would be 
changed and enhanced. Career Development Officers’ functions would 
be combined with Assignment Officers’ tasks, as indicated earlier. 
Moreover, the regional and functional bureaus would participate directly 
in assignment decisions rather than through central personnel, as at 
present. Agency managers overall would be more involved in personnel 
decision-making. However, assignment authority and oversight would 
rest with the agency Director of Personnel. This does not change the 
Commission’s intent that the impetus in the assignment process come 
from agency management rather than the individual employee. 

Assignments of untenured Officers would be controlled centrally 
to ensure that each Junior Officer receives a mix of experience that will 
allow the Tenure Board an adequate basis for judging suitability for a 
Foreign Service career in competition with his or her peers. Posts must, 
therefore, use the JO as directed. Compliance would be monitored by 
central personnel. The larger number of JOs would ease the problems of 
meeting, for example, State’s consular staffing requirements at the 
junior level and allow JOs significant exposure in a variety of functional 
categories. 

Mid-level assignments (grades 04-01) would be made with direct 
bureau involvement. Positions at grades 03 and 04 would be treated as 
one category for assignment purposes, making it easier for Officers to 
gain broadening cross-functional experience. Approximately ten percent 
of 01 positions would be reserved for stretch assignments of high poten¬ 
tial 02 Officers. The same would be true at the OC level for 01 Officers. 
Senior assignments would be centrally controlled. 

The Commission recommends that given the importance of the 
Foreign Service’s role in staffing overseas posts, positions abroad should 
be filled first in the annual assignment process. It also recommends that 
tours of duty, both in domestic positions and overseas, should be longer 
(i.e., three or four years) except at extreme hardship and danger-pay 
posts. This would afford the Officer the chance to develop greater 
expertise in each position held. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


61 


Finally, to ensure that all employees fairly share overseas 
service, the Commission also recommends not only retaining the five- 
year maximum on continuous service in the United States, but strength¬ 
ening that rule by creating a linkage between promotion and overseas 
assignments at each grade. 


Career Progression 

Promotion/Retention/Separation/Retirement 

Allow for predictable promotions/attrition, eliminate senior 
window. Adequate career stability is impossible in a system lacking a 
well-defined position structure and in which rapid promotions are the 
rule rather than the exception. Critics of the existing system have 
described it as one of “up-and-out” rather than “up-or-out.” The promo¬ 
tion system the Commission is recommending is most definitely an “up- 
or-out” system. The Commission’s proposal provides for an Officer to 
move through the ranks at roughly the same pace as the year group 
cohort with which he or she entered the Service. Outstanding perform¬ 
ers would move somewhat more rapidly, and less distinguished perform¬ 
ers somewhat more slowly than the average. Most Officers could expect 
to move up to the FSO-1 level before retiring, but some would retire at 
lower levels after a full career. In contrast to the existing system, 
promotion competition for entry into the Senior Foreign Service would 
occur automatically when time-in-class and years-of-service minimums 
are met, rather than at the option of the employee (i.e., the SFS window 
would be eliminated). 

Basic to the promotion system advocated by the Commission is a 
strict limitation on the number of positions at each grade by its percent¬ 
age of the total FSO corps, as illustrated in Chart II on page 23. Also 
fundamental is the institution of minimum and maximum years-of- 
service limits on each grade. As Chart IV (p. 29) demonstrates, Officers 
would become eligible for promotion consideration at a set years-of- 
service minimum and a fixed time-in-class minimum (perhaps three 
years at the mid-grades and four in the SFS). Those not receiving pro¬ 
motions would be retired upon reaching the years-of-service maximum 
for grades 02 and above. Promotions would be to actual vacancy, as in 
any closed promotion system, rather than to anticipated/estimated 
vacancy, as at present. 

Promotion numbers would be set on the basis of the number of 
Officers in a given year reaching either the mandatory retirement age of 
65 or their years-of-service maximum for a given class, plus anticipated 
attrition calculated from historical data. Promotion would actually occur 
based on merit by seniority as vacancies crop up as individuals actually 
leave the Service. Greater than anticipated attrition would result in 


62 


Final Report 


CHART IV 

Career Promotion Flow 



’“Years of service (cumulative). Numbersin parentheses represent minimum 
years of service required for promotion eligibility at that rank; the other number 
represents the years of service maximum for that rank. 


35 

32 

30 

26 

22 

18 

6 

Years of service 


CM 

MC 

OC 

01 

02 

03 ** 

Tenure 


Class 


**03 not promoted to 02 will be retained for 2 additional years to reach retirement 
eligibility. They will not be considered for promotion during that period, however. 


additional promotion opportunities the following year, with stretch 
assignments to fill vacancies in the meantime. 

Promotion competition at all grades would be class-wide. Selec¬ 
tion Boards would meet in a two-stage process. Members would first be 
instructed to select the most able Officers in the class for promotion. 
They would then be informed of the precise number of promotions to be 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


63 






























awarded at that grade and of the mix of skills and experience for which 
management has need at the next level. For example, a State Board, in 
considering how to award 60 promotions, might be instructed to consider 
the Service’s need at the next grade for seven Officers with solid consular 
experience and ten Officers with economic expertise, of whom two should 
have served in the Middle East and one in Japan, etc. The Board would 
then review the backgrounds of the “most able” Officers it had previously 
identified and produce a list of only as many Officers as promotion 
opportunities exist. To the extent feasible, the mix of skills and experi¬ 
ence needed at the next grade would also be met by this list. These 
Officers would then be promoted by seniority as vacancies occur. (See 
Appendix IV.) 

The Commission recommends limiting other agency representa¬ 
tion on promotion panels to employees of the foreign affairs agencies. 

The Commissioners believe that members of the Service are best able to 
judge each other’s performance and potential and would thus prefer to 
have only one outsider, the public member, participate. 

The activities of the Selection Boards are so important to the 
Service that only Senior Officers should sit on them, except perhaps at 
the 03/04 level. Because of minimum time-in-class and years-of-service 
requirements, the Boards would be reviewing fewer files than is now the 
case. Service on Selection Boards should be a major aspect of senior 
Officers’ career responsibilities. 

The Commission would also stress the need for the Board to 
consider more than just the narrative sections of employee evaluation 
reports. Assignment pattern and selection for and participation in 
training and stretch assignments are also relevant factors. The em¬ 
ployee performance file should also include a statement prepared by the 
Officer’s CDO outlining expected career path and the extent to which the 
Officer has been able to secure the prescribed mix of training and assign¬ 
ments. When an Officer takes on an assignment in response to urgent 
Service needs (perhaps thereby deviating from the career path), the CDO 
would bring this to the Board’s favorable attention. To allow for em¬ 
ployee comment on CDO statements, the statements could be cabled to 
post and the employee invited to comment on them. 

Untenured Junior Officers would receive automatic promotion 
from 06 to 05 at the end of three years’ service. In exceptional circum¬ 
stances, this promotion could be denied on the basis of more than one 
rating/reviewing Officer’s recommendation. This would amount to 
separation for cause and would thus occur only rarely. 

The rate of promotion the Commission envisages would largely 
obviate the need for limited career extensions at both the senior and 
mid-levels. But this authority should be retained and used as a man¬ 
agement prerogative for a set period when an individual with specific 
skills not otherwise available within the Service is needed to fill a 


64 


Final Report 


specific job. The Commission emphasizes that the use of an LCE would 
result in lost promotion opportunity into the class of the individual being 
retained. For example, the retention of one MC would automatically 
result in the reduction of OC promotion opportunities by one, and so on 
down the line. 

Despite the rarity of its use by agencies other than AID, the 
Commission recommends the retention of selection-out for relative 
performance. Individuals performing below the standards of their class 
ought to be separated at all levels. The Commissioners urge the other 
agencies to find ways to reinvigorate this process, which AID successfully 
employs. 

In addition to the time-in-class and years-of-service minimums 
already discussed, Chart IV also sets out illustrative years-of-service 
maximums for each grade. The Commission recommends seeking 
amendment of the 1980 Foreign Service Act to allow the payment of 
annuities to employees involuntarily retired with a minimum of 20 years’ 
service regardless of age.* At grades 02 and above, the years-of-service 
maximums proposed would allow for 20 years’ service. For class 03 
Officers not promoted to Class 02, the Commission recommends their 
retention for an additional two years beyond their prescribed 18 years-of- 
service maximum to allow them to qualify for an annuity. This would, of 
course, mean a reduction in the number of promotion opportunities into 
Class 3 for the period of time those employees remain on board. These 
individuals would not be considered for promotion during this additional 
two-year period. 

The Commission’s recommendations also mean that the Act 
would have to be amended to remove the provisions relating to the 
Senior Foreign Service “window.” SFS consideration would no longer be 
at the individual’s discretion, but rather an automatic function of years- 
of-service and time-in-class. These and other items requiring legislative 
action are noted under Implementation, page 36. 

The existing performance appraisal system is inadequate. It 
often lacks candor and is influenced too much by the eloquence of the 
Rating and Reviewing Officers. It must meet the needs of the new 
promotion system and career management process. 


*The law currently provides for voluntary retirement with an annuity 
for Foreign Service employees with 20 years’ service at age 50 and above and for 
the awarding of an annuity to FO-ls who opt for SFS consideration and are not 
selected for promotion to OC. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


65 



Labor-Management Relations 

Management should not belong to the bargaining unit. The co¬ 
mingling of the functions of professional associations with those of labor 
unions has created a situation in which members of senior management 
are also members of bargaining units with which management negoti¬ 
ates labor-management issues. This situation had given rise to a per¬ 
ceived conflict of interest. 

To correct this perception, steps must be taken to separate 
professional association and labor union functions from each other. But 
all members of the Service should have the opportunity to belong to a 
professional association of their choosing, while members of senior 
management should be excluded from membership in the bargaining 
unit. Conversely, employees other than members of senior management 
should have the benefits accruing to membership in a bargaining unit. 
The Commissioners define senior management to include SFS members, 
senior management FSO-ls, plus any personnel administrative officials 
and appropriate supervisory personnel, analogous to Title VII of the 
Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. 


Grievances 

Accelerate grievance processing and abolish routine prescriptive 
relief. Unlike the Civil Service grievance process, the Foreign Service 
Act allows the Grievance Board to provide “prescriptive relief” for 
grievants, permitting them to remain on the payroll and accrue addi¬ 
tional retirement credit. The provision of prescriptive relief has become 
automatic pending the frequently lengthy resolution of grievance cases. 
This serves not only to encourage grievances over minor, technical 
issues, but costs the taxpayers substantial sums in salary and retire¬ 
ment benefits. The Commission was told that in calculating promotion 
opportunities, the agencies include vacancies generated by the departure 
of employees who have not in fact left the system, since many Officers 
who are involuntarily retired opt to pursue grievances, either group or 
individual. 

The Commission sees no basis for affording the Foreign Service 
far more generous grievance procedures than the Civil Service, and 
therefore recommends that the 1980 Act be amended to remove interim 
prescriptive relief in Service separation cases. At the same time, how¬ 
ever, the grievance process often is too lengthy, and the grievant is 
denied an expeditious resolution of his or her case. To correct this, the 
Commission recommends that the 1980 Act be amended to require the 
Board to hold a hearing within 90 days of receiving a formal grievance 
and proffer a decision 90 days thereafter. (See Implementation, p. 36.) 


66 


Final Report 


Further, individual Foreign Service employees should be made 
responsible for ensuring that their performance files are complete and 
up-to-date before the files go to the Promotion Boards. Automation of 
files, as discussed below, will make this easier. Questions of alleged 
inaccuracy, omission, errors, or falsely prejudicial information that could 
be harmful to the member will be referred to the Records Correction 
Board (see Appendix III) rather than to the Grievance Board. In order 
to implement this, Section 1101(e) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 
must be deleted. 

With the reduction in the number of routine, technical grievances 
filed, the Commissioners believe the Grievance Board can be held to a 
maximum of 180 days for the adjudication of all grievance cases. In 
those instances in which Service separation is at stake, the employee 
should be separated as scheduled, with back pay and benefits to be 
awarded retroactively should the case be decided in the employee’s favor. 


Automation 

Implement a responsive automated personnel system. The Com¬ 
missioners welcome efforts to improve agency personnel modeling capaci¬ 
ties. But full automation of the personnel system is indispensable to the 
effective implementation of the personnel model the Commission has 
developed for the Foreign Service. Such automation would make pos¬ 
sible accurate modeling of the agencies’ workforce requirements, the 
setting of hiring goals, the determination of promotion numbers, and 
other related personnel processes. 

A computerized system for the tracking and maintenance of 
individual employee personnel files would allow employees to assume 
responsibility for ensuring their files are complete and up-to-date. The 
automated system should also provide for interactive data communica¬ 
tions between overseas posts and the Personnel Bureau’s career develop¬ 
ment staff, as well as with the office responsible for the overall manage¬ 
ment of the automated system. Only through the development of a fully 
automated system can the agencies be assured of timely, effective, and 
responsive human resources administration. 


Long-Term Societal and 
Environmental Considerations 

More serious challenges ahead. In spite of problems arising from 
implementation of various provisions of the 1980 Act, the Commissioners 
leave their task convinced that many of the Service’s most serious 
challenges stem from changes in American society and the world, over 
which the Service itself has no control. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


67 


One basic reality is the progressive decline in the attractiveness 
of overseas service. Foreign Service employees and their families have 
long coped with isolation, disease, poverty, and political instability. But 
the added threat of terrorist activity, hostage-taking, or assassination 
puts a strain on day-to-day living when neither home nor office offers a 
secure refuge from the determined terrorist, even in a seemingly “safe” 
environment such as Western Europe. 

Coupled with the rise in terrorism has been a decline in the 
financial incentives for service abroad, especially since Foreign Service 
spouses face extremely limited job opportunities abroad. While the 
agencies have made concerted efforts to expand employment opportuni¬ 
ties both within Missions and by negotiating reciprocal work agreements 
with other governments, prospects remain quite limited, especially for 
spouses with professional credentials. 

The situation today contrasts sharply with that of 40 years ago, 
when the female spouses of Foreign Service employees by-and-large 
accepted that their husbands’ careers would take precedence and that 
they and their children would accompany the employee wherever the 
Service sent him. These women made valuable contributions to their 
husbands’ careers, to the communities in which they lived, and, in many 
cases, to the conduct of relations with the host governments concerned. 
But they did so largely without pay or recognition. 

The aspirations of most women have changed radically since 
then. Community service is no longer viewed as an acceptable alterna¬ 
tive to a career. Women work not only for the economic benefits employ¬ 
ment brings them and their families, but to establish and further careers 
that are as essential to their self-identity and sense of self-worth as those 
of their partners in marriage. And increasing numbers of male Foreign 
Service spouses face the same reality of extremely limited job opportuni¬ 
ties overseas, particularly for those who seek to build careers with some 
degree of employment continuity and reasonable prospects for advance¬ 
ment. 


One manifestation of the rise of the two-career family in Ameri¬ 
can society is the growing number of “tandem” couples in the Service, 
couples in which both partners are full-time career employees of one of 
the foreign affairs agencies. To date, the Service has done a fair job of 
accommodating the desire of such couples to pursue their careers 
through a series of joint assignments domestically and overseas, while 
balancing the interests of nontandems who are in competition for the 
same positions. Though concern has been expressed that the Service’s 
ability to accommodate tandems will decline as these employees rise in 
rank and as their numbers grow, the assignment dilemmas posed by this 
group of employees pale beside those of their colleagues whose spouses’ 
careers lie outside the Foreign Service. 


68 


Final Report 


One other trend that the agencies face is the increasing tendency 
of recent entrants to the workforce to switch employers and/or careers 
repeatedly during the course of their working lives. While Foreign 
Service employees in the past generally considered that both they and 
their employer were making a commitment to a lifelong career, that 
sense of commitment is being called into question both by the increas¬ 
ingly rigorous up-or-out system imposed by the 1980 Act and by chang¬ 
ing employee attitudes. The new portability of Federal retirement 
benefits, which are now tied to the Social Security system, can only 
compound this trend. 

Research suggests that employees, both male and female, in¬ 
creasingly weigh a variety of family-related concerns as they consider 
whether to seek or continue employment with a given employer. These 
factors include such matters as the reluctance of employees to accept 
transfer to new locations because of their spouses’ career interests, the 
special needs of single parents, the rising demand for quality child care 
and quality care for elderly parents for whom employee may be respon¬ 
sible, and the desire of some working parents for part-time employment 
or job-sharing arrangements to afford them more time with their young 
children. These family-based issues can only grow in importance as the 
proportion of women in the workforce continues to rise (as statistical 
studies demonstrate it will). In the case of the Foreign Service, these 
factors are compounded in many cases by the realities of overseas living 
conditions and the dynamics of foreign cultures. 

While the Commissioners see no easy solutions to the difficulties 
of reconciling Foreign Service imperatives with changing U.S. social 
practices, they are concerned at the cost to the agencies in question and 
to the public interest if the agencies fail to do so. As a first step, the 
Commissioners encourage the agencies to investigate in detail the 
factors most important to existing and entering employees in their 
decisions to seek and continue Foreign Service careers and to explore 
ways to accommodate cited problems through more flexible application of 
existing personnel authorities. The Foreign Service Act provides the 
agencies far greater latitude in dealing with their Foreign Service 
employees than comparable Civil Service regulations (in granting leave 
without pay, for example). The issue, the Commissioners would stress, is 
not one of responding to employee needs, as legitimate as they might be, 
but of ensuring the agencies’ ability to compete effectively for scarce 
worker resources in the increasingly tough job market of the future. 
Given the importance of the missions that the agencies are charged with 
carrying out, they must be able to attract and retain the most qualified 
and competitive employees in the workforce. 

The Commission further recommends that the Director General, 
on behalf of all the foreign affairs agencies, commission an outside study 
to address the problems enumerated above and recommend appropriate 
solutions. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


69 


Implementation 

Implementation of the Foreign Service personnel system reforms de¬ 
scribed herein must begin under the leadership of the Secretary of State. 
If the Secretary accepts the report’s conclusions and endorses its recom¬ 
mendations, the reform process can go forward. But without the full, 
continuing, and direct support of the Secretary, the reform process 
cannot achieve its goals and would be better not started. 

The Secretary’s complete and continuing support is a necessary 
but not sufficient condition for implementation. The acceptance and 
support of the Administrator of the United States Agency for Interna¬ 
tional Development and the Director of the United States Information 
Agency also are also essential to successful implementation. And the 
Congress must be a partner in total commitment to the reform effort, for 
if the necessary resources are not provided on a continuing basis, the 
reformed system the Commissioners recommend cannot meet the na¬ 
tion’s needs. 

The Commission recommends that the Director General initiate 
the implementation program with a complete workforce requirements 
determination. Each agency must define the mission of each of its 
separate parts and must determine how many and what kind of employ¬ 
ees are needed to carry out that mission. Simultaneously, each agency 
must undertake a thorough position classification review and reclassifi¬ 
cation exercise to reconfirm its workforce structure and reshape its 
position distribution profile as sketched out in Charts II and III. 

With the classification reviews and workforce requirements 
determination completed, the agencies will be able to draw up implemen¬ 
tation plans and schedules and estimates of additional funding require¬ 
ments to cover the costs of needed personnel, more and better training, 
and full automation of the personnel management systems. Once those 
plans have been drawn up and those numbers calculated, the agencies 
can undertake to secure Congressional authorization, legislative 
changes, and first-year appropriations. 

This first phase of the implementation process will require 
roughly one calendar year. 

The second phase of the process must begin with the restructur¬ 
ing of the Bureaus of Personnel of the agencies, particularly the recruit¬ 
ment, career development, and assignment branches. All CDO’s must be 
selected and trained for their new responsibilities. The new examina¬ 
tion/recruitment process must be put into place, a revised evaluation 
system needs to be tested and adopted, new training programs and 
training-assignment sequences worked out, and a new tenuring process 
developed. 


The end of the second phase, roughly two years following initia¬ 
tion of the implementation plan, will see the agencies now ready to bring 
on board their first class of “reform” Junior Officers and to make their 
first “reform” assignments. From that point, an estimated six years will 
be needed to convert the current system into the “reform” system. 

During the implementation/conversion period, a number of 
“grandfather” or special transitional rules will have to be adopted to 
facilitate the changeover without damaging any Officers. The Commis¬ 
sion recommends in particular that the Service adopt a 12-year SFS 
multigrade time-in-class for Officers who have reached the MC level. 

The Service already has lost too many relatively young, highly talented 
Officers who made their way up the ranks very quickly but were then 
involuntarily retired after five years in grade. Moving immediately to a 
12-year multi-grade TIC for MC’s will avoid a further serious depletion of 
that valuable Officer resource until the recommended changes in the 
Senior Foreign Service structure are in place. In the same time period, 
the Service would do well to begin utilization of the LCE authority on a 
much more restricted basis than is now the case. 


Legislative Changes 

Following are 12 legislative changes required in order to implement the 
recommendations of the Commissioners. 

• Delete Section 202a(2) and Section 202a(3). Renumber Section 
202(a) (1) as Section 202(a). 

Analysis of the Amendment. This removes the Foreign Commer¬ 
cial Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the 
Foreign Agriculture Service from the Foreign Service Personnel System. 
These agencies are small in size and their members are concentrated in 
only two or three grades. As a consequence, a closed personnel system 
cannot work. The Commissioners think those members of the Depart¬ 
ment of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture who are serving 
overseas should accrue benefits as if they were in the Foreign Service, 
but should revert to regular GS benefits when in the United States. 

• Delete Section 203(b); renumber Section 203(a) as Section 203. 

Analysis of the Amendment. Under the current law, Section 
203(b) contradicts Section 203(a). The purpose of this amendment is to 
allow the restructuring of the Foreign Service Personnel System. The 
Commissioners have recommended that the Director General be the 
head of the entire Foreign Service, and that each of the constituent 
agencies (State, AID, and USIA) have a Director of Personnel for both 
Foreign and Civil Service employees. 

• Delete Section 1101(E), Section 1107(b)(1), and reletter and 
renumber. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


71 


Analysis of the Amendment. Alleged inaccuracy, omissions, 
error, or falsely prejudicial information in the official personnel record 
should not be grievable. These issues should be referred to the newly 
created Board of Record Correction. By removing these administrative 
issues from the purview of the Grievance Board, the Board will be better 
able to expeditiously address major grievances. 

• Section 1106(1), Board of procedures. Replace : “The Board 
shall conduct a hearing at the request of a grievant...”, with : “The Board 
shall conduct a hearing within 90 days following the request of a 
grievant....” 

Analysis of the Amendment. This amendment requires the Board 
to hold a hearing within 90 days following the request of the grievant. 

• Section 1107, Board of Decisions. Replace “...shall expedi¬ 
tiously decide the grievance ...” with “...shall decide the grievance within 
90 days...” 

Analysis of the Amendment. Although the law states that the 
Board should expeditiously decide grievances, many cases take one or 
two years to decide. This is unfair to the individual and to the system. 
The Commissioners believe that such long delays are detrimental to eve¬ 
ryone’s interest. 

• Amend Section 1106(8) by deleting "... the involuntary separa¬ 
tion of the grievant...” and adding the following sentence at the end of 
Section 1106(8): “Prescriptive relief shall not be applied in Service 
separation cases.” 

Analysis of Amendment. This amendment eliminates the Board’s 
ability to provide prescriptive relief (continuation on the payroll) in cases 
of Service separation. Other government employees do not have such 
rights. Some 50-100 Officers are currently on prescriptive relief. Officer 
rights are protected in two ways: 1) they are notified a year prior to 
their departure from the Service, and 2) the Board will be required to 
render a decision within 90 days. 

• Section_, to be inserted at the appropriate place, into 

PL-96-465 as amended: “A member of the Service who is not promoted 
from 03 to 02 in 18 years will be allowed to continue serving for an 
additional two years. After completing 20 years of service, the member 
will be eligible to retire, receiving benefits in accordance with Section 
806, notwithstanding any other provision of law.” 

Analysis of the Amendment. This amendment allows a member 
of the Service the ability to retire at the 03 rank, if not promoted, regard¬ 
less of age after completing 20 years of service. The number of individu¬ 
als who would be eligible for this provision would be small, but it is 
necessary in order to maintain the integrity of an up-or-out system. 

• Section 309(a), Limited Appointments. Replace “...may not 
exceed five years in duration...” with ”...may not exceed six years in dura¬ 
tion and...” 


72 


Final Report 






Analysis of the Amendment. This amendment increases the 
length of the Limited Appointment Authority from five years to six 
years. This is necessary in order to give the Officer sufficient opportu¬ 
nity to demonstrate his/her abilities prior to tenuring. 

• Section_, Authorized Strength of the Foreign Service, 

to be inserted where appropriate. 

“(a) Whenever the needs of the Service require, but at least once 
each fiscal year, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the heads of 
other agencies, shall prescribe the total active-duty strength as of the 
end of the fiscal year for tenured and untenured Foreign Service Officers. 

“(b) Each fiscal year, Congress must authorize a maximum 
number of Officers at each rank in the Foreign Service as presented by 
the Secretary of State.” 

Analysis of the Amendment’. The Commissioners determined 
that the maximum number of Foreign Service Officers and the maximum 
number at each rank should be authorized by Congress as in the case 
with the Armed Forces. While not the preferred course, the Commission¬ 
ers noted that, without outside restraint, the number of senior Foreign 
Service Officers exceeded positions available or the needs of the Service. 
The percentage of Senior Foreign Service Officers has reached nearly 20 
percent of the entire Foreign Service. The Commissioners believe no 
more than 17 percent of the tenured officers should be in the Senior 
Foreign Service. 

• Section_, Limitation on Political Appointees, to be 

inserted where appropriate. 

“The number of political appointees to positions available for 
Senior Foreign Service Officers should not exceed 12 percent of the total 
number of Senior Foreign Service Officers.” 

Analysis of the Amendment : This limits the total number of 
political appointees to 12 percent of the Senior Foreign Service. This 
includes Ambassadors, Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries and 
equivalents, and Deputy Assistant Secretaries. With so many positions 
being designated Ambassador-at-Large or Assistant Secretary-equiva¬ 
lent, a limitation on the overall number of political appointments is 
appropriate. For example, if the Senior Foreign Service had an author¬ 
ized strength of 600, then the number of political appointees would be 
limited to 72. The total number of Senior Foreign Service positions 
would be a total of 672. 

• Section_, Records Correction Board 

“(a) The Foreign Service Records : Correction Board (hereinafter 
in this section referred to as “the Board”) shall consist of no fewer than 
three members, who shall be independent, distinguished citizens of the 
United States, who are not employees of the Foreign Service Agencies or 
Members of the Service. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


73 





“(b) The Chairperson and Members of the Board shall be ap¬ 
pointed by the Secretary of State. 

“(c) Members of the Board who are not employees of the U.S. 
Government shall be paid for each day they are performing their duties 
(including travel time) at the daily equivalent of the maximum rate for 
Grade GS-18 of the General Schedule under Section 5332 of Title 5, 
United States Code. 

“(d) The Secretary of State may, upon written notice, remove a 
Board member for corruption, neglect of duty, malfeasance, or demon¬ 
strated incapacity to perform his or her function. 

“(e) The Board may obtain facilities, services, and supplies 
through the general administrative services of the Agencies. 

“(f) The Board may adopt regulations concerning its organization 
and procedure. 

“(g) Primary responsibility for the accuracy of an Officer’s person¬ 
nel records rests with the Officer. In situations where the personnel 
office responsible for the maintenance of the records and the Officer 
disagree on what material should or should not be included in the 
permanent file of the Officer, the issue is referred to the Board. 

“(h) The Board shall expeditiously decide and proscribe a remedy. 
In each case the decision of the Board shall be in writing.” 

Analysis of the Amendment : As in the military service, this 
amendment places primary responsibility for the accuracy of Officer 
records on the Officer. Disputes over the accuracy of the record between 
the personnel office and the Officer will be referred to the newly created 
Board of Records Corrections rather than the Grievance Board. Record 
maintenance issues should not fill the agenda of the Grievance Board, 
when more pressing issues need to be addressed. 

• Amend Section 601(c)(1) to read as follows: “(c)(1) Promotions 
into the Senior Foreign Service shall be recommended by the selection 
boards only from among career members of the Service assigned to 
Class 1 in the Foreign Service Schedule.” 

Analysis of the Amendment : This change eliminates the decision 
of Foreign Service Class 1 Officers to open their promotion window into 
the Senior Foreign Service. All Class 1 Officers would be considered for 
promotion into the Senior Foreign Service as soon as they have spent a 
required minimum time in class. The Officer would remain eligible for 
promotion consideration until reaching an overall maximum time in 
Service for an Officer attaining the Class 1 rank. The current practice of 
having a six-year window would be eliminated, thereby eliminating the 
situation in which rapidly promoted Officers could have their careers cut 
short because they chose to open their windows early. 


74 


Final Report 


Glossary/Explanation/Terms 


FS—abbreviated designation of a career member of the Foreign Service. 
It is normally used together with a numerical expression of personal 
rank such as FS-8, FS-3, FS-1. 

FSO—abbreviated designation of a Foreign Service Officer before the 
passage of the 1980 Foreign Service Act. FSO also was used with a 
numerical expression of rank such as FSO-1, FSO-5, FSO-7. FSO 
connoted Officer status and rank, while FSS connoted staff or support 
staff and rank. Although the 1980 Act eliminated some of the differences 
between Officer and staff Dersonnel, the term FSO remains in use. 

SFS—abbreviated term for the Senior Foreign Service, which is the 
Foreign Service version of the Senior Executive Service. 

SFS Window—the Foreign Service Act of 1980 states that a Foreign 
Service member of Class 1 may be considered for promotion into the 
Senior Foreign Service over a period of time or number of years pre¬ 
scribed by the Secretary of State. The period of time or number of years 
is called the Senior Foreign Service promotion window. Under current 
law and practice, the employee opens his or her own window. If the 
employee is not promoted during the period allowed, the window closes 
and the employee thereafter is not eligible for promotion into the Senior 
Foreign Service. 

Senior Threshold—used informally to describe the promotion from 
FS-1 to the entry-level rank of the Senior Foreign Service. This term 
reflects an Officer’s readiness to serve in the most senior positions of the 
U.S. Foreign Service. 

OC—abbreviation for the rank title Counselor, which is the entry grade 
of the Senior Foreign Service. 

MC—abbreviation for the rank title Minister Counselor, the second 
career grade of the Senior Foreign Service. 

CM—abbreviation for the rank title of Career Minister, which is the 
highest grade level of the Senior Foreign Service. A very limited number 
of Career Ministers have the personal rank of Career Ambassador, 
conferred by the President in recognition of especially distinguished 
service over a sustained period. 

Limited Career Extension (LCE)—limited extension of the career ap¬ 
pointments of members of the Foreign Service whose maximum time in- 
class has expired. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


75 


Cone System—members of the State Department Foreign Service are 
grouped by grade and functional category for purposes of assignment and 
promotion. These promotional groupings are called cones. 

Bid System—the assignment process employed by some Foreign Service 
agencies begins with the submission of statements of employee assign¬ 
ment preferences, or bids. Bid lists are submitted by each Officer, and 
assembled for each position that needs to be filled. In most cases, the 
person assigned to a position will have “bid” on the assignment and 
person receiving the job will have been selected from among “bidding” 
Officers. 

Up-or-Out System—a personnel system that features the automatic 
departure from the system of an employee who has failed to earn a 
promotion in a prescribed number of years. 

Commissioning and Tenure Board—a board of Foreign Service 
members established under Sec. 306(a)(2)(b) to evaluate Career Candi¬ 
dates in order to recommend to the Secretary which ones should be 
offered career appointments to the Foreign Service. 

Senior Seminar—the year-long training program offered by the For¬ 
eign Service Institute for Senior Foreign Service Officers of exceptional 
promise. 

AFSA—the American Foreign Service Association. 

AFGE—the American Federation of Government Employees. 

Closed Personnel System—a bottom-entry personnel structure. 

Rank-in-Person—personnel system in which an employee’s personal 
rank is not dependent upon the classification of the position to which 
assigned. 

Rank-in-Position—personnel system in which an employee’s rank is 
directly related to the classification of the position to which assigned. 

Defined Position/Grade Structure—precise definition of the agency’s 
needs by position, including a specification of the grade level of the 
position and the skills required to fill it. 

Defined Workforce Requirements (in terms of total authorized 
positions and authorization by class against the mission)—precise 
definition of the human resources needed to accomplish the agency’s 
mission, as set forth in authorized workforce strength. 


76 


Final Report 


Appendix I 


Interim Report of the 
Commission on the 
Foreign Service Personnel System 


I. Introduction 

The 1988-1989 Foreign Affairs Authorization Act directed the Secretary 
of State to appoint a five-member commission to review the Foreign 
Service personnel system and instructed the Commission to report its 
findings to the Secretary and the Congress not more than one year from 
the date of enactment of the Authorization Act, that is by December 22, 
1988. The process of appointing the Commissioners, which by law was to 
be carried out in consultation with the Congress and the exclusive 
employee representative organizations, took approximately six months. 
At the outset of their tenure, the Commissioners informed both the Sec¬ 
retary and the Congress that because of the length of the appointment 
process, they would not meet the deadline set in the Act. They would 
instead seek to produce an interim report by the legislated due date and 
a final report early in 1989. This is their interim report. 

This report reviews the Commission’s membership, its mandate, 
the context in which it sees the Foreign Service carrying out its functions 
in the coming years, the approach which the Commission took in organ¬ 
izing its activities, and its observations thus far. The report also identi¬ 
fies the issues that were of greatest concern to the employees and agency 
managers with whom the Commissioners spoke. 

II. Membership 

The Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel System is chaired by 
John M. Thomas, who retired from the Foreign Service serving last as 
Assistant Secretary of State for Administration. The other members are: 
former Director General and Director of Personnel Alfred L. Atherton, 
Jr., former Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staff Director M. 
Graeme Bannerman, retired Vice Chair of the U.S. Merit Systems 
Protection Board and former President of the New York State Civil 
Service Commission Ersa H. Poston, and Civilian Personnel Director for 
the U.S Air Force Pat L. Schittulli. 

in. Mandate 

The 1988-1989 Foreign Affairs Authorization Act instructed the Commis¬ 
sion to: 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


77 


... conduct a study of the Foreign Service personnel system, with a view 
toward developing a system that provides adequate career stability to 
the members of the Service. 

The Commission interpreted this language broadly to cover the 
Foreign Service personnel systems of the five agencies authorized to use 
the Foreign Service Act of 1980—the Department of State, the United 
States Information Agency, the Agency for International Development, 
the Foreign Commercial Service of the Department of Commerce and the 
Foreign Agricultural Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection 
Service of the Department of Agriculture. Initially, the Commission 
looked at the ways in which each of these agencies operates in the areas 
of: recruitment, examination and appointment; career management to 
include training, assignments and promotion; retention and retirement; 
as well as the overall administration of their personnel systems. Follow¬ 
ing its initial broad review, the Commission focused its efforts in general 
on the agencies with a predominant Foreign Service personnel comple¬ 
ment—State, AID, USIA. However, most of the comments and observa¬ 
tions at the end of this report relate to State’s Foreign Service personnel 
system. Our final report will deal as necessary with the other agencies 
as well. 


The Commission has not interpreted its mandate to encompass 
the pay and benefits provided Foreign Service employees except to the 
extent these factors may prove relevant to its conclusions about the per¬ 
sonnel policies of the systems it studied. 

With regard to the concept of “career stability”—the question 
which the Authorization Act put at the heart of the Commission’s man¬ 
date—the Commissioners have not equated “career stability” with 
“lifetime career security.” Rather, they have defined it to mean that a 
Foreign Service career should be governed by a personnel system that (1) 
has predictability, stability and consistency and (2) is fair and equitable 
and provides members of the Service an opportunity for professional 
satisfaction and meaningful public service. 

The Commission started from the premise that the Foreign 
Service Act of 1980 was designed to give the foreign affairs agencies the 
necessary authority to maintain an effective cadre of personnel to staff 
the conduct of U.S. foreign relations. To that end, it was understood, 
those agencies would have to: 

• Define their staffing needs, both quantitative and qualitative, 
in terms of their specific missions; 

• Develop competitive career systems which meet those needs; 

and, 

• Ensure equity, fairness and career opportunity as defined 
above for all personnel in those career systems and allow for mobility 
among career categories. 


These, then, are the standards against which the Commissioners 
judged the personnel system brought into being by the 1980 Foreign 
Service Act. 

IV. Role of the Foreign Service 

The Commissioners considered it vital to their deliberations to define the 
role and functions of the Foreign Service. They approached this task in 
three ways—reviewing first the Congressional testimony and legislative 
history in order to establish the broad mission of the Service as defined 
in the 1980 Act, looking next at the international context in which the 
Service seeks to accomplish its mission today and investigating finally 
the specific functions assigned to the Service by the 1980 Act. The 
Commissioners recognized that the dramatic changes that took place in 
the foreign affairs environment between 1946, when the first comprehen¬ 
sive Foreign Service Act was passed, and 1980 had necessitated in part 
the adoption of a new legislative basis for the Service. They considered 
also that the increasing complexity of foreign policy issues in the eight 
years since the Act came into effect has made even more important today 
the question of whether the Service is in a position to carry out its vital 
functions. 

A. Legislative Foundations 

Title I, Chapter 1, Section 101 of the 1980 Foreign Service Act provides: 

• that a career Foreign Service is essential to assist the Presi¬ 
dent and the Secretary of State in the conduct of U.S. foreign relations; 

• that the scope and complexity of foreign affairs have height¬ 
ened the need for such a service; 

• that the Foreign Service must be preserved, strengthened, and 
improved in order to carry out its mission effectively in response to the 
complex challenges of modem diplomacy and international relations; 
and, 

• that the members of the Service should be representative of 
the American people, knowledgeable of both U.S. and foreign cultures— 
including foreign languages—and available to serve in assignments 
throughout the world. 

B. Current Foreign Policy Context 

The world in which the United States finds itself today is vastly different 
from the one in which it first undertook international responsibilities on 
a global scale at the end of World War II. The U.S. is no longer, as it was 
in 1945, the world’s preeminent economic and military power. The 
international economic system which we once dominated increasingly 
resembles a tripolar system in which the U.S., Japan and the soon-to-be 
fully integrated European Economic Community carry roughly equal 
weight. And we compete in this system for the first time in our modem 
history as a debtor rather than creditor nation. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


79 


We—together with our allies—face the uncertainties and oppor¬ 
tunities posed by the changes that may be taking place within the Soviet 
Union. We have recently witnessed a tendency for intractable and desta¬ 
bilizing regional conflicts—in the Gulf, Afghanistan, Angola, the Middle 
East and the Western Sahara among others—to be amenable finally to 
settlement through negotiation rather than military means. 

We—and all those with whom we share this planet—face an 
increasing array of global, technological issues that can be dealt with 
effectively only through multinational means. These issues affect not 
only the quality of human life, but have the potential to determine 
whether there will be life at all. They include such matters as arms 
control, the environment, population, famine and telecommunications. 
And in assessing these and other factors in the changing foreign policy 
environment, the Commission recognized also that the link between 
foreign and domestic policy has grown closer, making it incumbent on 
our national decision-makers to consider both sets of factors in setting 
policy. 

With both the world and the role of the U.S. in that world in a 
state of transition, it seems clear that the preservation of peace abroad 
and of freedom and economic opportunity at home—our nation’s core 
interests—will in future depend increasingly on our capacity for effective 
diplomacy and creative thinking as well as on more conventional meas¬ 
ures of our nation’s relative strength. In the Commission’s view, the 
Foreign Service of the United States is an indispensable institution on 
which the nation—and its elected leaders—will need to draw if our 
foreign policy is to be adequate to today’s challenges. 

In this connection, the Commissioners would stress that utiliza¬ 
tion of the Foreign Service as envisaged in Title I of the Act would go far 
towards strengthening the Service’s sense of purpose and enhancing its 
ability to compete with other employers in attracting and retaining 
qualified people. 

C. Specific Mission of the Foreign Service 

The functions of the Foreign Service are set forth in the 1980 Foreign 
Service Act (Sec. 104). As enumerated in the Act, those functions were 
three, to which the Commission would add a fourth: 

1. To represent the interest of the United States in relation to 
foreign countries and international organizations and, as appropriate, to 
perform functions required by international agreements to which the U.S. 
is party or by U.S. law (including such traditional diplomatic tasks as 
presenting U.S. views to other governments, persuading other govern¬ 
ments to adopt policies favorable to U.S. interests, negotiating interna¬ 
tional agreements, providing consular services mandated by law and 
regulation (including services for American citizens abroad), informing 
foreign publics about the U.S., administering foreign assistance pro¬ 
grams and promoting U.S. exports); 


80 


Final Report 


2. To provide guidance for the formulation and conduct of 
programs and activities of the State Department and of other agencies 
which relate to U.S. foreign relations (assisting the President and the 
Secretary of State in the formulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy 
and carrying out the reporting and analysis function which is essential to 
that task); 

3. To perform functions on behalf of any agency or other govern¬ 
ment establishment (including any establishment in the legislative or 
judicial branch) requiring such services (serving in essence as the over¬ 
seas arm of the entire U.S. Government); and, 

4. To provide the necessary administrative support to accomplish 
those goals. 

V. Approach 

In approaching its study, the Commission was conscious that the agen¬ 
cies that use the personnel system mandated by the Foreign Service Act 
faced the difficult task in 1980 of implementing a new piece of legislation 
which, while modeled to some extent on the preceding 1946 Act, intro¬ 
duced a number of significant changes in their personnel systems. Full 
implementation of the Act did not in fact begin until February 1984, as 
anticipated in the grandfather provisions of the Act. In such circum¬ 
stances, it is quite reasonable to examine whether some adjustments 
may be needed either in the legislation itself or in its implementation. 

In conducting its review, the Commission’s intention is to iden¬ 
tify areas where adjustments are needed and to offer recommendations 
for these changes. 

The Commission convened for the first time on June 13, 1988 
and has met, inter alia, with: 

• Personnel managers and other senior officials of the five 
foreign affairs agencies; 

• Exclusive employee representative organizations; 

• Congressional staff; 

• Officials of the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of 
Personnel Management, and the General Accounting Office; 

• Groups of various categories of employees; and, 

• Individual employees on request. 

The Commission also held two open meetings for employees of 
the foreign affairs agencies, one of which was also open to the general 
public. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


81 


VL 


General Observations 


The Commissioners recognized that theirs was not the first in-depth 
examination of the Foreign Service personnel system. There have, in 
fact, been at least six formally commissioned studies of the Foreign 
Service since World War II. Many of the same problems and issues have 
been considered in each of these studies. For example, the question 
keeps arising whether there should be a unified personnel system to 
serve the State Department’s domestic and overseas needs, or whether 
there should be separate Foreign Service and Civil Service systems. Two 
of the six studies in question have argued for a unified system, one for 
distinct domestic and overseas categories within a single Foreign Service 
system, while the other three have concluded that a unified system is not 
feasible. 

A recurrent problem, particularly at State, is that the Foreign 
Service personnel system, while conceptually integrated, does not seem 
in practice to function as a coherent, integrated whole. One observer 
found that the “system” in fact is a series of discrete personnel proc¬ 
esses—recruitment, appointment, training, assignment, promotion and 
retirement—which are carried out almost independently of one another 
and without clear relationship to the articulated Service mission set 
forth above. 

The Commission heard plentiful anecdotal expressions of foreign 
Service employee dissatisfaction with the general terms and conditions 
of employment and with management’s implementation of specific 
provisions of the 1980 Act. However, some other indicators, such as low 
attrition rates, do not support the view that Foreign Service morale is so 
low that people are leaving the Service in large numbers. 

It did become clear to the Commission, however, that there is 
widespread uncertainty and apprehension among employees at all levels 
as to how the personnel system is structured, how it functions, what the 
current rules of the game are, how long those rules will remain in place, 
and what kind of a career the Service now offers. It should be noted that 
management itself is not satisfied with all current Foreign Service 
personnel policies and procedures. In fact, after the Commission was 
organized, management approved a number of personnel system changes 
which had been recommended by a task force on management reform. 

The Commissioners found unanimous agreement among man¬ 
agement and employees alike that societal and workforce changes are 
adding severe new strains to Foreign Service personnel systems. The 
increasing participation of women in the labor force, the emergence of 
the dual-career family, the growing number of single parent families, the 
new portability of retirement benefits, a spreading tendency for Ameri¬ 
cans to shift employers more frequently than in the past are some of the 
changes occurring in our society and workforce which will need to be 


82 


Final Report 

. 4 Uiii O .> 


factored even more than is now the case into the Foreign Service person¬ 
nel planning and career development process. 

Workforce Requirements Determination 

• The Commissioners were particularly interested in determin¬ 
ing what workforce planning mechanisms and procedures were being 
utilized at the several agencies, and whether they enabled agency 
managers to balance manpower requirements with anticipated work¬ 
loads. A major point of concern was whether all agencies had adopted 
Satisfactory requirements determination and review processes which 
take into account all factors affecting workload productivity. Further ex¬ 
amination of the agencies’ workforce planning processes is required and 
will be undertaken in fulfillment of the Commission’s mandate. 

• In a closed personnel system like the Foreign Service’s (in 
which employees enter at the bottom and advance through the ranks), 
definitions of workforce requirements utilizing computer modeling 
techniques must underlie staffing decisions. Personnel changes cannot 
be accomplished overnight since it takes years to recruit, hire, train and 
develop the people needed to feed the personnel pipeline into the upper 
ranks. It must be noted, too, that new systems must be given time to 
mature and that constant changing of these systems could have a 
counter-productive/disruptive impact. 

Recruitment, Examination, and Appointment 

• The question was raised whether current officer recruitment 
practices, which center on the written exam, are sufficient to attract FSO 
candidates with the right mix of skills and interests who are also broadly 
representative of the American people. Some suggested a need for more 
intense targeting of specific segments of the population, i.e. minorities 
(recruitment of whom is a problem across the board), economics gradu¬ 
ates for the economic cone, MBAs for administration, area and language 
specialists. Others noted that there is no demonstrated correlation 
between success in the examination process, as measured in the numeri¬ 
cal scores assigned candidates on the written and oral examinations, and 
relative success in the Foreign Service. 

• The Commission also found widespread doubt about the 
validity of the current practice of assigning functional designations (to 
the administrative, consular, economic and political “cones” as they are 
called at State) largely on the basis of written exam scores. On the one 
hand, most candidates pass in more than one functional area, which 
suggests that the conal questions do not distinguish effectively among 
applicants with regard to their strengths, interests, or aptitude for 
specific Foreign Service functions. On the other hand, entering officers 
forced to accept a designated conal preference before they really under¬ 
stand what the Foreign Service is all about and without realistic expec¬ 
tations regarding their prospects for advancement are not likely to make 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


83 







satisfactory choices. Many thought that it would be preferable to return 
to the practice of making cone assignments at the time of tenure rather 
than at entry. Others felt strongly that the cone system itself should be 
abandoned. 

• There are also problems in the recruitment of service members 
who are not “exam” officers. The Foreign Service has a vital, continuing 
need for a wide variety of specialized skills and services not normally as¬ 
sociated with the conduct of diplomacy but central to the Service’s ad¬ 
ministrative support responsibilities. (Roughly 50% of the resources of 
the Department of State are dedicated to the provision of such support.) 
However, it appears that the Service is encountering difficulty in attract¬ 
ing qualified recruits in such specialized areas as financial management, 
construction engineering, communications, and secretarial support. 

Career Management 

A. Training 

• There is no disagreement between managers and members of 
the Foreign Service as to the need for more and better training of em¬ 
ployees in all categories. The Service recognizes that its value to the 
nation lies in the proficiency of its members, and that maximum profi¬ 
ciency and expertise can be attained only through a proper blend of 
training and experience. Why, then, is training considered to be undesir¬ 
able by so many employees, and why do managers not give greater stress 
to the training function? Employees apparently do not pursue training 
opportunities as they might have some years ago, because training by 
itself is not conducive to promotion to a higher rank. For the most part, 
one only gets promoted in the Service on the basis of quality performance 
on the job, not on other factors including performance in the classroom. 
There is also little or no relationship between the classroom experience 
and the quality of performance after training. It is understandable, 
then, that in a Service governed by “up or out” principles, an employee 
might conclude that training is an unaffordable luxury. For manage¬ 
ment, the lack of emphasis on training appears to be a resource question, 
or at least a resource allocation decision. A number of possible solutions 
to the training problem were discussed with the Commission. 

B. Assignment 

• The point was made repeatedly in most of the Commission’s 
sessions with employees and managers that the Foreign Service assign¬ 
ment process is badly in need of overhaul. The integrity of the formal as¬ 
signments system is widely questioned, as is its capacity to deliver the 
most qualified officers where their skills are most needed. 

• The concept of worldwide availability of Foreign Service em¬ 
ployees apparently has been discarded in practice. Instead, employees 
are assigned on the basis of their expressed preferences among vacant 
positions subject to rules that deal more with considerations of rank, 


cone and length and location of previous assignments than Service need 
or career development imperatives. Moreover, some units, rather than 
rely on the central system, have established their own recruitment net¬ 
works and qualifying procedures. 

C. Promotion and Development 

• Perhaps the most telling distinction of the assignment/promo¬ 
tion process is the competition among FSO-1 and senior officers to be as¬ 
signed as a Deputy Chief of Mission. The highly coveted DCM assign¬ 
ments match perfectly senior threshold and senior officer precepts for 
demonstrated managerial competence. 

• On the other hand, Political and Economic Counselor posi¬ 
tions, even at our major embassies, are seen not to provide the same op¬ 
portunity for promotion as a DCM position in a small country. For pur¬ 
poses of competition for promotion across the senior threshold, or within 
the senior ranks, management of people and functions clearly counts 
more than the management of issues or government-to-government rela¬ 
tionships. 

• Another feature of the assignment/promotion/career develop¬ 
ment process which has fallen into disrepute is the separation of employ¬ 
ees and positions by functional categories or cones. The institution of the 
multifunctional promotion track may portend the eventual abandonment 
of the cone system, or at least its modification to the point at which it 
does not encourage or force narrow functional specialization. However, 
the point was also made that the growing complexity of both foreign 
policy issues and technical support requirements demands greater rather 
than less in-depth, job-related expertise. 

• The Commission also found widespread concern among all 
employees—Civil Service as well as Foreign, specialists as well as gener¬ 
alists—over the lack of well-defined career development concepts for 
employees in all categories. 

Separation I Retirement 

• Clearly the most controversial and traumatic Foreign Service 
personnel development in many years has been the involuntary retire¬ 
ment of officers at the 0-1 level for failure to be promoted into the senior 
ranks within the allotted time frame. The involuntary retirement of a 
number of senior officers through the denial of career extensions has 
been only slightly less disruptive. Since grievances are pending with 
respect to some of these personnel actions, it would be inappropriate for 
the Commission to comment on them specifically. The controversy does 
raise the question, however, of how or why specific time-in-class periods 
were chosen and whether there is any reason now to modify them. The 
1980 Act provides flexibility on this point, leaving it to the Service to de¬ 
termine how rapidly its “flow-through” mechanism should operate in 
order to serve the nation’s needs. The Commission heard arguments in 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


85 








favor of flow-through patterns other than the one currently in force and 
other time-in-class schemes than those currently followed. For example, 
there is considerable sentiment in favor of providing a minimum of 12 
years in the Senior Foreign Service for any officer promoted to the MC 
Class, the second step within the Senior Foreign Service. There is also 
considerable Service-wide sentiment in favor of the fall-back provision 
AID has adopted for its 0-1 officers, which allows an officer who has 
opted to compete for promotion into the Senior Foreign Service to with¬ 
draw from that competition and serve out his remaining mid-level time- 
in-class allotment as an 0-1. 

• Both employees and managers were concerned that selection- 
out for relative performance has fallen into disuse. Some doubted, 
however, that it was realistic to expect the revival of a vigorous, perform¬ 
ance-based selection-out system given that Service separation actions 
are subject to lengthy delays as a result of the grievance process. 

VII. Next Steps 

The Commission will continue its investigation of these and other 
personnel issues with the aim of submitting its final report and recom¬ 
mendations to the Secretary and the Congress early in 1989. 


86 


Final Report 


Acknowledgments 











The Commission acknowledges the following individuals who, in their 
meetings with the members, gave generously of their time and counsel: 


Susan Andross 

Staff Consultant International 
Operations Subcommmmittee\ 
HFAC 

James A. Baker III 

Secretary of State 

David Beall 

ARA/BRA* 

Marcia Bernicat 

NEA/INS 

Russell Bikoff 

AFGE 

Steve Block 

PER/G 

Rob Blackburn 

DS/OP 

Tim Blackburn 

Assistant Director, Human 
Resources Division, APHIS 

Laurance Bond 

Director of Personnel, 

AID 

Rudy Boone 

PA/Press 

Dick Bowers 

M/MO 

John A. Burroughs 

Senior Threshold Board 

John Butcher 

General Accounting Office 

Mary Ann Casey 

NEA/AFN 

Marshall Casse 

EB/PAS 

Debbie Cavin 

EUR/EX 

Frank Chiancone 

AFGE 

Teresa Chin-Jones 

OES/SCT 

Philip L. Christenson 

Professional Staff 

Member, SFRC 

Joan M. Clark 

Assistant Secretary of State 
for Consular Affairs 

Kay Clark-Bourne 

FS Ones 

John Condayan 

Director, Office of Foreign 
Missions 

Claudia Cooley 

OPM 


* Unless identified elsewhere in this report, these abbreviations stand 
for offices within the Department of State. The positions cited are those the 
individuals held at the time of consultation with the Commission. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


87 














Louis Davis 

Assistant Administrator 
Management, FAS 

Daryl De Harb 

DS/ST/STO 

Alex De La Garza 

PER IRMA 

Ed Dickens 

ARA/BRA 

Ken Dillon 

FSI 

Chris Disney 

DS/ATA 

Terri Duncan 

M/MO 

Mort Dworkin 

PM/SAS 

Lawrence S. Eagleburger 

Deputy Secretary of 

State 

Chuck English 

D/P&R 

Roger B. Feldman 

Comptroller, Department 
of State 

Sherman Funk 

Inspector General 

Peter W. Galbraith 

Professional Staff Member 

SFRC 

Dan Gamber 

M/COMP/FO 

Jean German 

Former Director, Overseas 
Briefing Center 

Harry Gilman 

Senior Threshold Board 

John Golden 

Director for Personnel and 

Civil Rights, USDOC 

Robert Graninger 

PER IRMA 

Sandy Grigola 

S/S-0 

Brandon Grove 

Director, Foreign 

Service Institute 

Robert Halligan 

Assistant Administrator for 
Personnel and Financial 
Management, AID 

Nathan Hibler 

DS 

Irvin Hicks 

Deputy Assistant Secretary, PER 

Roy Higgins 

Professional Policies and 
Programs Division, DS 

George High 

Senior Officers Association 

Clarence Hodges 

Deputy Assistant Secretary, 

SIEEOCR 

Ken Hunter 

Deputy Assistant Secretary, PER 

Larry Ikels 

Chief, FS Personnel Division, 
USIA 

Robert M. Jenkins 

Senior Staff Consultant, HFAC 

A1 Jarek 

EUR! EX 


88 


Final Report 


Michael Hasten 
Wanda Kennicot 
Gordon Klang 
Larry Kozak 
Sheldon Krys 

Dan Kurtzer 

Robert E. Lamb 

Clint Lauderdale 
David L’Heureux 
Joseph H. Linnemann 

Debbie McCarthy 
Beverly McDonald 
Richard McDonnell 

James A. McGinley 

Joe McLaughlin 
Patricia Madison 

Vic Maffet 
Mike Mahoney 
David Mein 

Roger Merrick 
Neil Merriweather 

Maryann Minutillo 
Paul Molineaux 
Evangeline Monroe 
Bruce Morrison 
Joseph Murray 

Darlene Namahoe 
Andrea Nelson 

Claude Nelson 

Michael Newlin 

Jerry Nice 


OMB 

s/s-s 

OPM 

FSI 

Assistant Secretary of State 
for Administration and 
Information Management 
S/P 


Assistant Secretary of State for 
Diplomatic Security 
OIG 

Department of State 
M/COMP 

IOIOICP 

Senior Threshold Board 
Director, Budget and Finance 
Division, FAS 

Deputy Associate Director for 
Management, USIA 
PER/PEE 

Director, Personnel Division, 

FAS 

PER/FCA/TL 

CA/OCS 

Director of FS Personnel, 

AID 
FS Ones 

Chief, Evaluation /Employee 
Relations Branch, AID 
M/FLO 
FS Ones 
AFSA 
A/ISO 

General Accounting Office 
EUR/EEY 

Counsel, House Post Office 
and Civil Service Committee 
Acting Deputy Administrator, 
International Services, APHIS 
Chairman, Senior Threshold 
Board 
ARA/EX 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


89 



Sandra Odor 

10 

Doug Olin 

Assistant Director for Budget 
Systems, Senate Committee on 
the Budget 

Chris Paddock 

AFGE 

Kenneth Peel 

Minority Staff Consultant, 

Subcommittee on International 
Operations, HFAC 

Edward Perkins 

Ambassador to South Africa 

Pat Peterzack 

Chief, FS Assignments Branch, 
AID 

Michael Pistor 

Counselor, USIA 

Joan M. Pryce 

M/FLO 

Lance Putney 

DS/OP 

Steve Reyner 

Chief, Career Development 
Branch, AID 

Rozanne L. Ridgeway 

Assistant Secretary of State 
for European and Canadian 
Affairs 

John Riesz 

Assistant Administrator, 
International Agricultural 
Statistics, FAS 

George Robertson 

Director, Human Resources 
Division, APHIS 

Harlan F. Rosacker 

Director, Office of Personnel, 

USIA 

Jim Rubbeck 

Assistant Administrator, 

Foreign Agricultural Affairs, 
FAS 

Charles Saisson 

Chief, Personnel Programs, 
Personnel Division, FAS 

Peter Sarros 

Senior Officers Association 

Bruce Sasser 

OMB 

Teresita Schaffer 

NEA/EGY 

Ivan Selin 

Under Secretary of State for 
Management-designate 

Perry Shankel 

AFSA 

George Shultz 

Former Secretary of State 

Sabine Sisk 

AFSA 

Diana Smith 

EUR/P 

Richard Smith 

Senior Officers 

Association 

Ronald I. Spiers 

Under Secretary of State for 
Management 


Jay Spiker 

Chief, Recruitment Branch, AID 

John T. Sprott 

Deputy Director, FSI 

Chris Stockman 

PER/FCA/EUR 

William Swing 

Deputy Assistant Secretary, PER 

Betty Swope 

CAIEX 

Jim Tull 

PER/FCA 

Cyrus R. Vance 

Former Secretary of State 

Ed Vasquez 

ARA/AND 

Ann Veneman 

Associate Administrator, FAS 

Marcia M. Verville 

Professional Staff Member, 
SFRC 

George S. Vest 

Director General 

Calvin Watson 

General Accounting Office 

Dick Welton 

Deputy Assistant Administrator, 
Foreign Agriculture Affairs 

John C. Whitehead 

Deputy Secretary of 

State 

John Williams 

Deputy Assistant Administrator, 
Management, FAS 

Larry Williamson 

PER / PE 

Marilyn Wanner 

DS/CC 


The Commission also thanks the many other individuals who corre¬ 
sponded with the Members or offered their views and advice in other 
ways. 






I 


Commission on State Department Personnel 





Correction of Foreign Service 
Personnel Records 


I. Purpose. The Foreign Service Board for Correction of 
Personnel Records will be the highest level of administrative appeal for 
correcting personnel records. The Board will convene to consider all 
applications brought before it to determine the existence of an error or 
omission. The Board will make recommendations, when appropriate, to 
the Director General, consistent with existing laws. The Board will not 
consider grievance cases. 

IL Board Composition and Procedures. The Director 
General shall appoint only senior non-Foreign Service Officers as Board 
members. The Board, consisting of at least three members, will consider 
all cases brought before it in either closed or open sessions to decide 
whether an error or omission exists. Board members vote to grant or 
deny a request to correct an error in a personnel record. Although final 
authority in all cases is retained by the Director General, the panel’s 
recommendation is normally accepted as the final decision. 

Id. Application for Corrections. Application for correc¬ 
tion of a record must be filed within three years after discovery of the 
alleged error. The Board will not consider any application before the 
applicant has exhausted all administrative remedies afforded by existing 
law or regulations. 

IV. Findings, Decisions, and Recommendations. The 
Board will always make official written findings, decisions, and recom¬ 
mendations. A majority vote of the members constitutes the final Board 
action as long as the decision is to approve the request for correction. All 
Board members must agree to deny a request for correction. 

VL Summary. The Foreign Service Board for Correction of 
Personnel Records provides a simple and effective process to review 
administrative errors or omissions by an objective and impartial Board. 




Promotion of 
Foreign Service Officers 


l. Objectives of the Promotion Program. The funda¬ 
mental purposes of the Foreign Service promotion program are to select 
Officers through a fair and competitive selection process that advances 
the best qualified Officers to positions of increased responsibility and 
authority and provide the necessary career incentives to attract and 
maintain high quality individuals. 

IL Terms Explained 

a. Competitive Category. A category of Officers who compete 
among themselves for promotion. 

b. Central Selection Board. A board of Officers convened under 
the authority of the Secretary of State to consider Foreign Service 
Officers for promotion to the grades of 04, 03,.02, 01, and SFS. 

c. Promotion List. A listing of all Officers approved for promo¬ 
tion within a competitive category to the grade of 04 or higher. 

d. Date of Promotion. The date used as the primary means of 
indicating relative seniority among Officers of the same grade and to 
determine eligibility for consideration for promotion to the next higher 
grade. 

e. Failed Selection for Promotion. Officers considered for promo¬ 
tion but not recommended. 

f. Average Time to Promotion. The number of years of continued 
service completed by most Officers when promoted to a particular grade. 

g. Promotion Expectation. The expected percentage of Officers in 
cohort groups who will be selected to the next higher grade. 

m. Selection Board Procedures 

a. Appointment of Boards. The Director General, in consultation 
with and upon the recommendation of the agency Director of Personnel, 
appoints and convenes central Selection Boards for all agencies. 

b. Composition of Boards. Only senior Foreign Service Officers 
who have the experience and mature judgment to make accurate assess¬ 
ments on promotion potential are chosen to serve as Board members. In 
order to provide a balanced perspective, Board members should mirror 
the Officers eligible for consideration with respect to functional catego¬ 
ries. One public member should also serve on each Board. Board mem¬ 
bers are required to take an oath affirming their intent to perform their 
duties in the best interest of the Foreign Service. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


93 





c. Information Provided to Selection Boards. Central selection 
boards are provided: 

(1) The number of Officers in each competitive category 
to be considered. 

(2) The maximum number of Officers the Board may 
recommend for promotion. 

(3) A selection folder on each Officer being considered for 
promotion. Selection folders should contain at a minimum evaluation 
reports, copies of approved awards, and computerized Personnel Audit 
Reports. 

(4) Management charge to the Selection Board: The 
management of each agency will charge its respective Board. This 
charge will include the number of individuals to be promoted and the 
skills and expertise required at the next higher level. For example, a 
State board, in considering how to award 60 promotions, might be 
instructed to consider the Service’s need at the next grade for seven 
Officers with solid consular experience, ten Officers with economic exper¬ 
tise, of whom two should have served in the Middle East and one in 
Japan, etc. The Board would then review the backgrounds of the “most 
able” Officers it had previously identified as promotable and produce a 
list of only as many Officers as promotion opportunities are available 
with, to the greatest extent feasible, the mix of skills and experience for 
which there is need at the next grade. These Officers would then be 
promoted by seniority as vacancies occur. 

d. Whole Person Concept. Board members should use the whole 
person concept to assess each eligible Officer’s relative potential to serve 
in the next higher grade. Factors such as performance, leadership, 
breadth of experience, training and development accomplishments, job 
responsibility, professional competence, specific achievements, and 
education should be considered. 

e. Functions of the Board President. The Board Chair, the senior 
member, is charged to monitor the Board’s progress, conduct a quality 
review, and ensure a fair and equitable treatment of all selection folders. 

f. Report of Board Proceedings. Each Selection Board submits a 
written report to the Director General through the agency Director of 
Personnel certifying that the Board carefully considered all records and 
that the Officers recommended for promotion are the best qualified. 

g. Approval of Board Proceedings. The Director General sends 
Selection Board proceedings to the Secretary of State for final approval. 


A Proposal for a Foreign 
Service Recruitment System 


Background 

The primary goal of any employment system is to locate and employ, as 
quickly as possible, highly qualified people to carry out the mission of the 
organization. The employment system must adhere to the Uniform 
Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. A validation process 
ensures that factors used to rank candidates do not have an adverse 
impact on the employment opportunities of any race, sex, or ethnic 
group. 

Meeting the validation requirements of the Guidelines is not 
particularly difficult if, at the beginning of the recruitment process, the 
Department identifies in writing the major job requirements, and subse¬ 
quently the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required to perform in 
Foreign Service Officer positions. There must be a discernible relation¬ 
ship between the job requirements and the KSAs. The KSAs must also 
be reasonable for entry into the position. If this is done effectively, 
adverse impact is less likely to occur, and the required documentation 
needed to defend the Department in any EEO complaints will be avail¬ 
able. 

Procedures 

The first step in any recruiting process is to solicit applications from a 
variety of sources. Since college graduates are prime candidates for 
foreign affairs agency positions, recruiting should be concentrated at 
colleges and universities. The general public must be given an opportu¬ 
nity to apply, and applications must be accepted from any minimally 
qualified candidate. The job announcement must specify minimum 
qualifications. Those meeting the qualifications must be offered the 
opportunity to take a shorter version of the written examination (primar¬ 
ily the general background and English expression segments of the 
existing test). The test must be validated against Foreign Service 
requirements to avoid any adverse impact problems, e.g., EEO com¬ 
plaints. 

Candidates scoring highest will be required to submit an SF-171, 
Application for Federal Employment, a transcript, and any security 
forms that would be required if selected. (Early submission of security 
forms will decrease processing time if the candidate is later selected.) 
Also, an essay on a topic related to the Foreign Service Officer require¬ 
ments may be required to be used as a tiebreaker. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


95 


Combine test scores with ratings on such other factors as: 

Education. Candidates should be given varying amounts of 
points based on several factors, such as college GPA, college major, 
activities, and honors. This must be designed so that points awarded are 
demonstrated to be related to the Foreign Service Officer positions. For 
example, a political science degree gets five points, while a music degree 
gets one. 

Work experience. Work experience relating to the knowledge, 
skills, and abilities required to perform the duties of the position may be 
given varying points. This area should not be too heavily weighted in 
the scoring process since employment opportunities for college students 
are often limited and vary greatly with location and economic circum¬ 
stances. Persons out of college get more work experience. If experience 
is weighted too highly, those with experience will rank much higher than 
those just graduating from college. 

At this point, using total scores, a cut-off score should be estab¬ 
lished based on an estimate of the number of applicants necessary to 
provide an adequate pool of candidates. These highly qualified candi¬ 
dates then progress to the interview. 

Interview panels, composed of current State Department person¬ 
nel and perhaps some members from outside the Department, will be 
established to interview all highly qualified candidates. (The panels 
should include women and minority group members.) Interview ques¬ 
tions must meet the the same validity requirements as any other screen¬ 
ing device, i.e., must relate to the requirements of the position. Assum¬ 
ing the interview will be used to further rank the candidates, answers 
must be scored on a predetermined, job-related scale. All panels must 
use the same questions and scoring to ensure consistency. Final ranking 
for selection may use the interview score alone, but adding it to the prior¬ 
ranking score may provide a better-balanced candidate. 

A selection board of senior State Department employees will be 
established to select candidates. The board should include women and 
minority group members, if possible. The essay submitted with the 
application may be evaluated and used to break ties, if necessary. 


96 


Final Report 



Functional Categories 

(illustrative) 


State 

Administrative Management 
Financial Management 
Personnel Management 
General Services 
Security 

Information Systems Management 
Political Affairs 
Political/Military Affairs 
Labor Affairs 
Science and Technology 
Narcotics Control 

USIA 

Information 
Cultural Affairs 
Administration 
Librarian 
English Teaching 
Printing and Editorial 

AID 


Program Analysis 
Administrative Management 
Agriculture/Rural Development 
Economics 
Food 

Urban and Community Development 

Private Enterprise 

Engineering/Science 

Health and Population 

Human Resources/Education/Training 

Community and Contract Management 

Controller 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


97 


( ^ 

Appendix III 

V_ ) 


Report of the 
Director General's 
Commission on 
Civil Service Improvements 

December 1991 



98 


Final Report 









Commission Members 




Alfred O. Haynes, Sr., Retired, Department of State 
Chairman 


Sidney H. Blakely 

William L. Camp 

Jack D. Jenkins 

Joann M. Jenkins 

Lois D. Roberson 
Jeanne R. Sprott 

Michele E. Truitt 

Andrew J. Winter 


Director of Applied Technology 
Bureau of Diplomatic Security 
and Information Management 
Department of State 

Director, Passport Offices 
Bureau of Consular Affairs 
Department of State 

Executive Director 
Bureau of Administration 
Department of State 

Executive Director 
Bureau of East Asian and Pacific 
Affairs 

Department of State 

Retired, Department of State 

Director, Career Mobility Programs 
Bureau of Personnel 
Department of State 

Deputy Executive Director 
Bureau of Inter-American Affairs 
Department of State 

Executive Director 
Bureau of African Affairs 
Department of State 


Department of State Publication 9924 
Released December 1991 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


99 



Table of Contents 


Commission Mandate.1 

Methodology.2 

Overview.3 

Findings and Recommendations.4 

Summary Comments.4 

Specific Recommendations.7 

Long-Term Workforce Planning and Professional 

Development.7 

Upward Mobility.8 

Grade Cap for Civil Service Secretaries.9 

Training and Career Development.10 

Encouraging Lateral Mobility.11 

The Career Development Role of the ERB.13 

Civil Service/Foreign Service FTE Allocations.14 

Professional Career Counselors.15 

Improved Cooperation and Coordination on 

Personnel Issues.16 

Recertification of Supervisors.19 

Recruitment and Security Clearance Processing 

Time.20 

Automated Personnel Systems.21 

Posting of Civil Service Vacancies.21 

Noncompetitive Conversions.22 

Professional Intern Programs.23 

Increased Recognition for the Civil Service.23 

Conclusion.25 

Summary Index of Recommendations.26 

Acknowledgements.27 




























Report of the Director General's 
Commission on Civil Service 
Improvements 

December 1991 


Comm is sion Mandate 


In the spring of 1991, the Under Secretary for Management 
tasked the Director General of the Foreign Service and Director 
of Personnel with conducting a review of the Civil Service 
Personnel component of the Department of State's workforce. 
The objectives of this study were: 

• to provide greater mobility, professional recognition, and 
career advancement opportunities for State's Civil Service 
employees; 

• to provide the Department with enhanced skills in the Civil 
Service and greater flexibility and efficiency in using this 
invaluable personnel resource. 

The study was to use the first annual report (October 1990) 
of the Department of State Ombudsman for Civil Service Em¬ 
ployees as its baseline and would include emphasis on recruit¬ 
ment, increased workforce mobility, career counseling, career 
development, and training. 

To implement the directive of the Under Secretary, the 
Director General established a Commission chaired by a former 
senior Civil Service employee and composed of senior level 
representatives of regional and functional bureaus of the De¬ 
partment. 

The Commission's mandate—and its approach to fulfilling 
that mandate—reflect the principles embodied in the Congres¬ 
sional "findings" that prefaced statutory establishment of the 
Civil Service Employees' Ombudsman (Section 172 of the 
Foreign Relations Act for Fiscal Years 1988 and 1989, 22 USC 
2664a): 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


101 




"(a) FINDINGS. — The Congress finds that— 

(1) the effectiveness and efficiency of the Department of State 
is dependent not only on the contribution of Foreign 
Service employees but equally on the contribution of the 
42% of the Department's employees who are employed 
under the Civil Service personnel system; 

(2) the contribution of these Civil Service employees has been 
overlooked in the management of the Department, and 
greater equality of promotion, training, and career en¬ 
hancement opportunities should be accorded to the Civil 
Service employees of the Department; and 

(3) a goal of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 was to strengthen 
the contribution made by Civil Service employees of the 
Department of State by creating a cadre of experienced 
specialists and managers in the Department to provide 
essential continuity." 


Methodology 

At the outset of the Commission's study, the Chairman 
met with the Honorable Constance B. Newman, the Director of 
the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). They reviewed 
State's authority to institute programs for greater mobility, 
increased training, and structured career development for Civil 
Service employees, with the intent of improving the workforce 
and making it better equipped to deal with the complex prob¬ 
lems facing the country in the 1990s and years thereafter. The 
Commission's mandate and endeavors received Ms. Newman's 
personal endorsement, and she assigned a key senior member 
of her staff, Ms. Dona Wolf, as a point of contact between the 
Commission and OPM. 

The Chairman also called upon the Inspector General, 
several Assistant Secretaries, and bureau Executive Directors, 
both regional and functional, to obtain their input into this 
process. 

Following the official convening of the Commission, the 
full group met weekly, held sessions with the Ombudsman and 
with representatives of the Bureau of Personnel (PER), the 
Foreign Service Institute, and the personnel officers from 
several bureaus. Members also met with officials from other 


102 


Final Report 




federal agencies who had responsibilities for administering 
specific personnel management programs in their organiza¬ 
tions. 

The Commission reviewed the most recent human re¬ 
source management studies initiated by the Department.* It 
also reviewed the 1990 and 1991 reports to the Secretary by the 
Department's Ombudsman for the Civil Service, the Inspector 
General's report of the 1990 inspection of the Bureau of Person¬ 
nel, and a separate report on the operation of the Bureau of 
Personnel prepared by OPM in September 1991. 

The interviews, briefings, and studies, together with the 
personal knowledge and experience of the Commission mem¬ 
bers, provided the basis for the recommendations put forward 
in this report. 


Overview 


The United States Department of State was established for 
the purpose of developing, coordinating, and implementing the 
foreign policy initiatives of this country. To carry out this vital 
national responsibility, the Department's most important 
resource is a committed and capable workforce. This is a 
unique and symbiotic team of Civil Service and Foreign Service 
employees, representing complementary strengths and making 
complementary contributions. The Department's mission—its 
purpose for existing—can only be accomplished through the 
effective utilization of all its employees. 

As the Department formulates foreign policy and imple¬ 
ments policy initiatives through diplomacy, it must do all it can 
to ensure the high caliber of its employees and to introduce into 
its workforce the competencies and skills required to deal with 
the demands and challenges of the coming decades. 

The Civil Service and Foreign Service are partners in 
carrying out the Department's foreign policy responsibilities. 
They must work together in a common environment toward 


•Report on Administrative Functions in the 1990's (Grove Report), 1988; Study 
of the Foreign Service Generalist Personnel System (Bremer Report), 1988; 
Report of the Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel System (.Thomas 
Report), 1989. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


103 








shared goals and objectives. Contributions made by members 
of the Civil Service merit recognition, and Civil Service employ¬ 
ees deserve enhanced career development opportunities. 
Developing the career potential of Civil Service employees and 
drawing fully upon their skills and the continuity they provide 
are essential to maintaining morale, commitment, and produc¬ 
tivity. This is effective human resource management in support 
of the Department's mission, and all areas of the Department 
must cooperate in the effort. 

It has been noted that the Department may spend more 
money on maintaining equipment than it does on recruiting, 
developing, and training its Civil Service employees. This 
raises a question of priorities. Failure to do preventive mainte¬ 
nance on infrastructure or machines will mean progressive 
deterioration, degrading their capability and reliability. The 
same is true with a workforce. If we do not invest properly in 
maintaining and upgrading the intellectual and technical skills 
of employees, particularly in these times of rapid change, the 
Department's effectiveness in pursuing vital national interests 
abroad will be significantly undermined. Investments in our 
human resources are the most cost-effective way to ensure the 
continued and improved ability of the Department to carry out 
its ever more complex mission. 


Findings and Recommendations 

Summary Comments 

The Commission found that many of the conclusions and 
recommendations of the human resource management reports 
cited above remain valid prescriptions with direct bearing on 
the management of the Department's Civil Service component. 
Where appropriate, it has repeated these judgments or ex¬ 
panded upon them. The Commission has sought to build on 
earlier reviews and, in accord with its mandate, tried to place a 
sharper focus on aspects such as career mobility, career counsel¬ 
ing, training, and the vital role of firstline supervisors in the 
human resource management process. The Commission also 
examined ways in which the central personnel system—in close 



cooperation with the bureaus it serves—could exert stronger 
leadership in implementing resource management improve¬ 
ments. 

Overall, the Department's central personnel system has not 
assumed the same pivotal role in the management of Civil 
Service resources that it has traditionally exercised in the case of 
the Foreign Service. The Commission concluded that this has 
been partially responsible for inadequate attention devoted to 
Civil Service career issues. It believes that greater focus must 
now be brought upon this area. 

The Bureau of Personnel is a service organization; it has 
the responsibility to provide designated services to managers 
throughout the Department. In some important areas, the 
central system has not been sufficiently responsive to the 
human resource management needs of senior management 
officials and firstline supervisors, and the shortfalls have im¬ 
pacted primarily on the Department's Civil Service component. 
The amount of professional career development, career counsel¬ 
ing, and training available to this segment of the Department's 
workforce is inadequate. Delays in the position classification 
process have been a chronic impediment to needed shifts in the 
structure of Civil Service components to meet changing require¬ 
ments. Where personnel management services have not been 
provided efficiently and responsively by the central system, 
bureaus have felt obligated to take on their own personnel 
management functions, usually with no corresponding transfer 
of resources. 

The current budget restrictions on staffing levels, com¬ 
bined with anticipated delays in obtaining security clearances, 
have impeded recruitments of new talent and skills from 
outside the existing workforce. The Commission has found that 
the present security clearance process is more efficient and 
rapid than prevailing perceptions, but it believes that mecha¬ 
nisms can be devised to ease hiring difficulties that may arise 
from the preclearance investigation requirement. 

Many Foreign Service and Civil Service managers and 
supervisors do not fully understand the regulations and proce¬ 
dures that govern the Civil Service. Firstline supervisors are the 
point people in the human resource management process. In 
many instances, however, they are deficient in carrying out 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


105 


their human resource management responsibilities, particularly 
in areas such as performance evaluation, training, and career 
enhancement direction. 

Supervisors are reluctant to release employees for training 
or for broadening detail assignments, citing concern that opera¬ 
tional capability will be degraded by staff absences. In this 
regard, the central system has also been deficient, failing to 
devise remedies for the conflict between the desirability of Civil 
Service training and the unrelenting operational demands on 
offices and supervisors. As a consequence. Civil Service em¬ 
ployees are not realizing their full potential—and the Depart¬ 
ment is deprived of heightened skills and productivity. 

The Commission believes that the fundamental approach 
required to improve the effectiveness and morale of the 
Department's Civil Service workforce is to establish a compre¬ 
hensive human resource management plan. This would in¬ 
clude a systematic analysis and long-range projection of skills 
requirements, the development of corresponding recruitment 
and training strategies, and the establishment of a professional 
cadre of career counselors. Such a program would enhance 
management's ability to make optimum hiring, placement, 
training, and career development decisions. It would help 
funnel employee skills to fill specific management needs, while 
providing personalized attention to employees' aspirations and 
concerns in the areas of training, career mobility, and advance¬ 
ment opportunities. The result would be higher employee skill 
levels, morale, and productivity and management's more 
efficient utilization of available personnel resources. 

The plan should ensure that career development and 
counseling are available for all levels of GS employees. There 
should also be a structured development program for the major 
career fields with explicit professional criteria and career lad¬ 
ders/paths for advancement to the journeyman levels of each 
field. It should also provide for greater lateral mobility to 
broaden the experience of the upper GS/GM grades and Senior 
Executive Service (SES), including the identification of some 
overseas positions and temporary details for this purpose. 


106 


Final Report 


Specific Recommendations 

Long-Term Workforce Planning and 
Professional Development 

The Commission feels that the Department must take 
initiatives to enhance long-range workforce planning and foster 
employee professional development. Both efforts take on 
added significance in the context of continuing budgetary 
constraints, which suggest limited future workforce growth. 
Within such an environment, it is critical that the Department 
use wisely its limited capacity to hire new employees and 
develop to the maximum the potential of its existing workforce. 

As the Department prepares to enter the 21st century, it is 
essential that wc adequately anticipate a vastly different Ameri¬ 
can workforce. Predictable hiring limitations in the short and 
long term, combined with dramatic labor force changes, de¬ 
mand the defining of Departmental Civil Service workforce 
skill requirements well into the next century. Recruitment 
sources must be developed now if the Department is to enjoy 
an edge in acquiring specific skills and abilities in an antici¬ 
pated highly competitive marketplace. 

Linked with long-term projections of skill requirements 
and development of recruitment strategies is the need to put 
into place a structured. Department-wide, centrally managed 
professional development program. The Commission notes 
that today the Department tends to hire Foreign Service em¬ 
ployees for careers, but Civil Service employees for jobs. The 
prospective Foreign Service employee can, with some certainty, 
anticipate career progression within a given cone or specialty, 
with both formal and informal criteria against which profes¬ 
sional development and career progression may be measured. 
Conversely, the Civil Service employee is generally on his or 
her own in mapping out a career and the milestones to be 
passed in arriving at professional objectives. For the Foreign 
Service there is at least a general institutional road map; the 
Civil Service has no such guide. 

In conjunction with professional counseling initiatives 
recommended in this report, the Department must begin to lay 
the foundation for a structured, centrally managed formal 
professionalization program for all major Civil Service career 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


107 


fields. Such a program should incorporate professional certifi¬ 
cation according to fully validated criteria as a prerequisite for 
progression beyond specified grade levels. Clearly, the devel¬ 
opment and management of such a program will entail an 
ambitious, resource-intensive effort at a time of enormous 
pressure on existing and anticipated funding. At a minimum, 
however, the Department should immediately initiate a con¬ 
tract for a feasibility study and cost analysis for the develop¬ 
ment and implementation of such a formalized Civil Service 
professional development program. 

The Commission recommends: 

1. That the Department, through existing or contractual 
resources, enhance its long-range workforce planning in 
order to define Civil Service workforce skill requirements in 
conjunction with labor force characteristics over the next 10 
years. 

2. That the Department develop a comprehensive recruitment 
plan, in concert with its long-range workforce plan. 

That the Department initiate a contract for a feasibility study 
and cost analysis for the development and implementation 
of a formalized, fully validated professional development 
program for all major Civil Service career fields. 


Upward Mobility 

The preceding comments and recommendations on Civil 
Service career development needs center on the advancement of 
"professional" employees in "major career fields" and 
Management's stake in broadening expertise and experience in 
the upper GS/GM grades and the SES. The Commission 
wishes to make an equally strong case for structured career 
development support for all functional categories and grade 
levels of Civil Service employees in the Department. While 
such a program would have to be centrally managed, it should 
be implemented in close cooperation with the bureaus. Special 
emphasis should be placed on assisting those employees at the 
lower grade levels to identify and seize opportunities for 
advancement. 

A substantial proportion of the Department's Civil Service 
workforce consists of employees at the lower wage grades, e.g., 
clerks in message centers and reproduction facilities, passport 



processors, voucher examiners, and chauffeurs. Each of these 
functions is important to the day-to-day operation of the De¬ 
partment and each makes a concrete contribution to the suc¬ 
cessful execution of the Department's foreign policy mission. 
The employees who provide this underlying support look to 
Management for encouragement and guidance in their efforts to 
improve their capabilities and their prospects for advancement. 
For these employees, no less than for those at higher grades, the 
Department's management has a responsibility to establish 
clear-cut criteria for job progression, to provide training and 
other programs that will broaden or diversify skills, and to offer 
information and advice on career choices. 

Some efforts are being made by the individual bureaus to 
focus attention on career growth opportunities for the lower 
ranking Civil Service employee categories, but the Commission 
has found little or no movement to institutionalize programs for 
these groups Department wide. Professional career counseling 
initiatives would include focus and assistance for all Civil 
Service grade levels. The Commission believes, however, that 
to accelerate and sustain the expansion of advancement oppor¬ 
tunities for all levels of Department employees, a central point 
for promoting, coordinating, and monitoring this aspect of 
human resource development is required. 

The Commission recommends: 

4. That the Department reestablish the position of Coordinator 
for the Upward Mobility Program within the Bureau of 
Personnel, to work closely with regional and functional 
bureaus to identify positions that can be used in a planned 
progression of skill and grade levels. 


Grade Cap for Civil Service Secretaries 

Generally, a Civil Service secretary can aspire no higher 
than the rank of GS-10 without converting to Schedule C and 
giving up certain Civil Service protections. To get to the 10 
level, this secretary must work for an Assistant Secretary. The 
Commission is aware that the Department has recently under¬ 
taken a study of the secretarial workforce and was not able to 
change these limitations on Civil Service secretary grade levels, 
but it believes the issue should be reviewed. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


109 



The Commission recommends: 

5. That the Department review its earlier secretarial study and 
consult further with OPM in an effort to find ways in which 
advancement opportunities for senior Civil Service secretar¬ 
ies can be expanded. 


Training and Career Development 

The Ombudsman's Report identifies training as a primary 
area of concern for Civil Service employees. It points to the 
relatively few Civil Service employees who have participated in 
senior training compared to members of the Senior Foreign 
Service who have had such training. It adds that, throughout 
the career span, training opportunities for the Civil Service are 
much fewer than those that exist for their Foreign Service 
counterparts. 

The Commission agrees that there are significant problems 
in this area. It notes again that longer term training for Civil 
Service employees has often been blocked because supervisors 
felt unable to spare members of their staffs for other than brief 
periods. Many of these supervisors are sincerely committed to 
employee development goals and recognize the longer term 
benefits to both the employee and the Department of training 
and excursion tours; but, with staffing at minimum levels to 
cover operational requirements (and sometimes below mini¬ 
mum), proposed training absences pose a management di¬ 
lemma. 

The Commission believes that the problem of ensuring 
adequate training and other career development opportunities 
does not belong to the direct supervisor alone. It is the respon¬ 
sibility of the Department's senior management and the central 
personnel system to establish a policy foundation and practical 
mechanisms that will support supervisors in meeting their 
obligations in the area of employee training and development. 

The Commission believes that the Department should 
establish a central training complement which would cover 
employees on longer term training, making possible the assign¬ 
ment of replacements during training absences. Since many 
trainees do not wish to return to their previous positions, the 
Department must simultaneously address the issue of linking 
training to post-training assignments. 




The Commission also believes that the Career Develop¬ 
ment and Training Division approved by the Director General 
as a part of the most recent Bureau of Personnel reorganization 
represents an effective organizational structure for meeting 
training objectives. The central Civil Service training comple¬ 
ment discussed above would provide this division with a useful 
management tool in furthering those objectives. It is important, 
however, that the division be adequately staffed to carry out the 
added tasks assumed in the reorganization, as well as an antici¬ 
pated increase in workload involved in the management of a 
central training complement and the implementation of other 
initiatives recommended in this report. 

The Commission recommends: 

6. That all training and career development policies be cen¬ 
trally staffed from the Career Development and Training 
Division, in close consultation with all bureaus and FSI. The 
Office should also retain responsibility for managing the 
Pearson program and expanded use of domestic and over¬ 
seas excursion tours for Civil Service employees. 

7. That a central training complement be set aside to cover 
agency-wide training needs to be centrally managed by the 
Career Development and Training Division. PER should 
also consider ways to earmark post-training assignments. 


Encouraging Lateral Mobility 

One of the Commission's primary charges was to explore 
ways in which the Department could instill more lateral career 
mobility into its Civil Service workforce. The Commission 
strongly endorses this concept. The constraints built into the 
Civil Service rank-in-position system inhibit a broadening of the 
work experience in the lower and middle ranks and risk stagna¬ 
tion and lack of vision and creativity at the top. To cope with 
the rapid changes in today's world and today's workplace, 
varied experience and breadth of vision are what government 
managers need. 

Notwithstanding the inherent rigidities in the Civil Service 
system, the Department should consider ways to introduce 
broadening opportunities through rotation programs, including 
the possibility of some structured rotational programs for lower 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


111 



GS levels. The Commission's review of the mobility issue has, 
however, focused on the SES and the SES-candidate grades 
GM-13 to GM-15. It is convinced that improvements in mobil¬ 
ity for these categories can be made. 

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with a 
primary concern to strengthen the SES corps throughout the 
Government, is also interested in fostering greater mobility in 
senior Civil Service ranks. OPM Director Newman has ex¬ 
pressed her belief that the U.S. Government must find ways to 
broaden the experience and competencies of senior executives 
in order to keep pace with the rapidly changing dynamics and 
complexities of public administration in years to come. 

One of the purposes in establishing the SES was to give 
agency heads the ability to move senior executives freely from 
job to job. Drawing on the statutory flexibility that has been 
provided for this, OPM seeks to broaden the knowledge and 
experience of SES members through an exchange program that 
would send senior executives on assignment to other agencies. 
It is also considering providing senior executives international 
exposure with assignments to foreign countries. 

The Commission's mandate included examining the 
feasibility of moving selected Civil Service employees into 
overseas positions. The Commission endorses such a program 
as a broadening technique for the SES and selected employees 
at the GM-13 to GM-15 level. Exposure to operations abroad is 
a reasonable and valuable component of efforts to strengthen 
the senior management cadres of the Department of State. 

Such exposure could be in the form of an actual tour in an SFS 
position abroad or in the form of details. In this regard, the 
Department should find ways to be more flexible in 
redesignating positions and shifting resources between the 
Civil Service and Foreign Service. 

Within the context of encouraging mobility, the Commis¬ 
sion also examined the feasibility of mandatory rotation of 
career members of the SES. The Commission concluded that an 
incentive mobility plan would be more desirable and more 
workable. Such a plan could use eligibility or competitiveness 
for Presidential and other awards, as well as competitiveness 
for higher executive positions, as motivators. 


112 


Final Report 


The Commission recommends: 

8. That the Department identify positions, in domestic offices 
and abroad, that can accommodate rotational assignments 
for Civil Service employees in grades GM-13 to GM-15 and 
members of the SES. 

9. That the Executive Resource Board (ERB) authorize the 
establishment and enforcement of an incentive career 
mobility plan for career members of the SES and those 
categories of GM-13,14, and 15 who desire to be included in 
an SES developmental program. 


The Career Development Role of the ERB 

At present, the ERB is an unknown entity to most Depart¬ 
ment employees, and a remote presence to those aware of its 
existence. Its functions as the policy and oversight body for 
management of the SES and preparation of GM-15s for even¬ 
tual entry into the SES are not clear to the Civil Service person¬ 
nel it regulates and guides. The Commission understands that 
OPM will shortly be issuing guidance suggesting that ERBs 
expand their employee developmental role to include responsi¬ 
bility for the development and training of GM-13s and GM-14s 
as longer range preparation for individuals in these ranks to 
enter the SES. Thus, the Commission anticipates that the ERB 
will play a major role in the implementation of initiatives for 
lateral mobility, access to training, professional career counsel¬ 
ing, and other recommendations in this report. 

The Commission notes that no regional bureau representa¬ 
tion is on the ERB. If the ERB is to widen the scope of its re¬ 
sponsibilities and to encourage and monitor properly a pro¬ 
gram of increased mobility and charted career paths for the 
Department's senior civil servants, the Commission believes it 
should include broader representation, possibly on the basis of 
rotation among newly represented bureaus. Care should also 
be taken to ensure a balance on the Board of career SES repre¬ 
sentatives, Senior Foreign Service (SFS) members, and Presiden¬ 
tial appointees. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


113 



The Commission recommends: 

10. That the ERB review its functions and procedures in antici¬ 
pation of new human resource management responsibilities 
extending down to the GM-13 level, and that it broaden its 
membership to include regional bureaus and balance it 
among employment categories. 


Civil Service/Foreign Service FTE Allocations 

Budget-driven OMB curbs on employment levels, mea¬ 
sured by a unit termed "Full Time Equivalency" or "FTE," have 
been the source of operational strains and tough management 
trade-off decisions in recent years. These difficulties are com¬ 
pounded by separate and rigid FTE allotments for Civil Service 
and Foreign Service positions. 

FTE for the Civil Service is distributed by the central 
system to the bureaus, which are then responsible for staying 
within the FTE numbers allotted them. FTE for the Foreign 
Service is centrally held and controlled. 

In FY-91 Department Management made a reasonably 
sound policy decision that necessary personnel cuts would be 
taken domestically rather than overseas. The easiest and most 
direct way to cut domestically was to reduce the amount of 
Civil Service FTE available for distribution to the various areas 
of the Department. This produced a quick and clear-cut reduc¬ 
tion of personnel strength by reducing intake. It had, however, 
the unintended but predictable result of delaying or freezing 
promotions for Civil Service personnel and placing the heaviest 
burden of the budget stringencies on that component of the 
Department's workforce. It also led to poor resource choices by 
bureau managers, who may have preferred to eliminate an 
expensive Foreign Service Officer job as opposed to an essential 
Civil Service support position. 

Almost 40% of the Department of State's full time domestic 
jobs are Foreign Service positions; almost one-third of Foreign 
Service positions worldwide are in Washington. Although 
cutting a Foreign Service position does not have the immediate 
effect of reducing FTE consumption, as is the case with the Civil 
Service, it should eventually translate into lower intake. Rec¬ 
ognizing the constraints and complexities of the Administra¬ 
tion-wide budget reduction effort, the Commission believes that 


114 


Final Report 



a more equitable means of reducing staffing levels must be 
found. Greater leeway to redesignate positions between Civil 
Service and Foreign Service, and to convert FTE allocations 
accordingly, will probably also be necessary in order to imple¬ 
ment lateral mobility initiatives (recommendations 8 and 9). 

The Commission recommends: 

11. That the Department review the current FTE allocation 
principles for Civil Service and Foreign Service, with a view 
to arriving at a more equitable distribution of domestic 
staffing reductions, and one that will provide greater 
operational flexibility for bureau managers and permit 
career mobility rotations. 


Professional Career Counselors 

One of the major points of concern in the reports reviewed 
by this Commission was the need for the Department to 
strengthen its career counseling operations. The Commission's 
discussions with various segments of the Department and with 
representatives of other agencies have confirmed that conclu¬ 
sion. 

Professional career counseling plays an essential role in the 
career development of employees and an agency's development 
of needed competencies. It is at this point in a comprehensive 
human resource management program where the needs of the 
agency and the capabilities and aspirations of the employee are 
systematically examined and melded. 

The Commission believes that the establishment of a 
professional team of career counselors, to provide career devel¬ 
opment guidance to employees at all levels, should be a high 
priority for Department managers. As part of this process, FSI 
should develop a training program and formulate proficiency 
criteria for certification of employees as professional career 
counselors, using Institute assets and appropriate elements of 
the Career Development Resource Center. Since the profes¬ 
sional counselor must have a general knowledge of the 
Department's needs and an understanding of its total mission, 
this training should also include brief assignments to, or de¬ 
tailed briefings from, various offices in PER and in regional and 
functional bureaus. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


115 










Career counselors should be fully knowledgeable of the 
Department's Affirmative Action Program and the special 
guidance and counseling presently being undertaken by the 
Continuity Counselors in CDA. Their responsibilities should 
explicitly include application of the Department's Affirmative 
Action Program directives wherever relevant in their counsel- 
ing. 

To be fully effective. Career Counselors should operate in 
an open manner, establishing frank and cooperative relation¬ 
ships, and serving as skilled advisers in the career development 
process. They should also work closely with assignment, merit 
placement, training, and career development offices. They 
should keep abreast of personnel policies and initiatives and 
encourage serious attention to employees' aspirations, while 
helping meet Management's interest in strengthening staff 
competence. To provide continuity, counselors should have a 
relatively long tenure in this function, which would indicate the 
need to establish a career ladder for the counseling field. 

Because of the relative lack of institutionalized guidelines 
for Civil Service advancement in the Department, which was 
noted earlier, the establishment of a professional counseling 
operation will be of particular benefit to Civil Service employ¬ 
ees. The Commission is also confident that the same caliber of 
professional career assistance would prove very useful to the 
Foreign Service as well. 

The Commission recommends: 

12. That the Department create a professional cadre of career 
counselors to provide skilled counseling and career develop¬ 
ment services for employees at all grade levels. 

13. That a career ladder be established for professional counsel¬ 
ors. 


Improved Cooperation and Coordination 
on Personnel Issues 

In addition to career counseling, training, and internship 
management, treated elsewhere in this report, there are various 
other areas of human resource management and personnel 
processing which impact directly on the Civil Service, and in 
which the geographic and functional bureaus need timely and 


116 


Final Report 



responsive support from the Bureau of Personnel. These 
include recruitment, position classification, devising organiza¬ 
tional structures, upward mobility initiatives, and Equal Em¬ 
ployment Opportunity guidance. Some bureaus have felt it 
necessary to take on PER responsibilities, even at the cost of 
absorbing these within existing bureau staffing levels. In other 
cases, bureaus have "loaned" their allocated positions to PER or 
have funded contract help in PER offices as the only alternative 
they perceived to ensure timely action on important tasks. 

In particular, the Commission was struck by the level of 
dissatisfaction with the position classification process, espe¬ 
cially the time required for position classification decisions. 

The commission strongly supports recent efforts to augment the 
position classification staff with expert contractual support. 
Given the government-wide scarcity of developed skills in this 
field, further use of contractor expertise to expedite position 
classification decisions will be very favorably received by 
bureaus. 

Responsibility for recruitment appears to be fractured 
within the Personnel Bureau and also somewhat dispersed 
around the Department. Several of the larger bureaus, with 
specialized technical skill needs, do their own recruitment. 
While decentralized recruitment may be the most effective 
arrangement for meeting certain specialized skill requirements, 
a stronger centralized recruitment effort will be needed to 
ensure an adequate inflow of skills Department wide in future 
years. The Commission believes that a coordinated review of 
current recruitment practices would be useful in anticipation of 
the development of a longer term recruitment strategy (recom¬ 
mendation 2). 

The Commission recognizes that PER, like the bureaus it 
serves, is suffering from significant staffing shortfalls and that 
little relief from the current constraints is in sight. It believes 
that the Director General should keep in mind the question as 
to whether some changes in organizational structure would 
facilitate timely and responsive PER support of bureau needs, 
and should take steps to promote better PER-Bureau under¬ 
standing and closer cooperation in the delivery of personnel 
services. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


117 




The personnel management team concept presently in 
place is an excellent program which, if used properly, can be 
instrumental in enhancing the togetherness and integration 
needed to improve the delivery of services to managers. The 
existing system, however, needs to be adjusted to accomplish 
this task. The teams must become more a part of the bureaus 
they service. Team leaders should continue to be assigned to 
the Personnel Bureau but will work, for the most part, as an 
additional resource for the bureaus assigned. The team leader 
will be given the authority to obtain the kinds of personnel 
management support from the central personnel system re¬ 
quired to respond to the bureau's personnel needs. Bureau 
Executive Directors will have input into the establishment of job 
elements and the performance appraisal of the team leader. 

The Commission recommends: 

14. That the Director General's monthly meetings with bureau 
Executive Directors continue to be used to prioritize and 
resolve major personnel issues, and that the periodic Person¬ 
nel Information Exchange (PIE) meetings of personnelists be 
used to work out issues of implementation. 

15. That periodic Personnel Management Conferences be held, 
to include bureau personnelists. Conference programs 
should be designed to draw bureaus and PER into closer 
working relationships, including discussions of better task¬ 
sharing and ways to avoid duplications of effort. 

16. That a PER-bureau rotational program be established to 
encourage exchange excursions for personnel specialists of 
the central system and of the various bureaus. 

17. That a Personnel Management Evaluation (PME) Program, 
developed by PER in 1990, be implemented Department 
wide, with PME teams composed of representatives from 
both PER and bureaus. The PME process should be used 
solely to assist offices to improve personnel services and to 
identify training and skill development needs. 

18. That the Personnel Bureau be the first Department area to 
take advantage of the PME evaluation system. 

19. That the PER/CSP Personnel Management Teams continue 
to be used, with modifications: Team leaders (GM-14 or 
above) will work for both PER and the assigned bureaus, the 
latter having input into job elements and standards. PER 
should seek feedback from serviced bureaus on an ongoing 
basis. 


118 


Final Report 


20. That PER's position classification capability be augmented 
with such contract support as may be necessary to ensure 
timely and responsive service. 

21. That PER establish a working group, including representa¬ 
tives of bureaus conducting independent recruiting, to 
review all Departmental recruitment for Civil Service, with a 
view to establishing a centralized program for agency-wide 
needs. 


Recertification of Supervisors 

The new OPM requirement for recertification of SES 
indicates a heightened attention to ensuring the professional 
skills and capabilities of senior managers. The Commission is 
concerned, however, that adequate attention has not been paid 
to confirming or developing the requisite management skills in 
the firstline supervisors below SES rank. 

The Commission believes that persons chosen for supervi¬ 
sory responsibilities should be required to satisfactorily com¬ 
plete a certification program. 

An employee will often have had some short course 
management training during a career, but the Commission has 
no evidence that such training is updated prior to assuming an 
initial supervisory position and periodically thereafter. The 
training and certification program should underscore, among 
other elements, the linkage between immediate supervisors and 
the Department's overall human resource management pro¬ 
gram, and explain the support to be expected from the 
Department's central administrative and personnel systems. 
Refresher efforts would be important in keeping the supervisor 
infonned of management policy decisions and legal develop¬ 
ments and ensuring he or she remains attuned to the important 
human resource responsibilities. 

The Commission recommends: 

22. FSI should develop a program to train and certify candidates 
before they assume significant supervisory duties, and to 
recertify them at appropriate intervals during their tenures 
as supervisors. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


119 





Recruitment and Security Clearance Processing Time 

From detailed briefings by senior officials of the Bureau of 
Diplomatic Security (DS), the Commission has concluded that 
the current average of 90 days to complete the Top Secret 
security clearance that is mandatory for virtually all State 
employees is a reasonable period for such a detailed and labor- 
intensive process. It commends the DS leadership for the 
Bureau's success in cutting the clearance averages from much 
higher levels in the past. The Department may, however, be 
losing some promising prospective employees, as these persons 
take other offers rather than await the completion of the clear¬ 
ance procedures. In any case, the Commission believes that 
some Department managers will tend to rule out recruitment 
from the outside in anticipation of clearance delays. 

In an effort to deal with part of this problem, the Depart¬ 
ment has established a preassignment program for secretaries. 
This has allowed Management to assign nonsensitive work to 
qualified applicants and place them on the payroll pending 
completion of the security investigation. 

The Commission understands that the program has been 
highly successful, and believes the Department should consider 
broadening it to cover recruitments for other position catego¬ 
ries, in which needed skills are found to be in short supply. The 
Commission recognizes that such expansion would entail 
creating a correspondingly large pool of central complement 
FTE, as well as obtaining commitments from bureaus to pro¬ 
vide nonsensitive but relevant work assignments pending 
completion of the full field clearance. 

The Commission recommends: 

23. That the Department consider the feasibility of expanding 
the preassignment program to include a broader range of 
difficult-to-fill skill requirements. 

24. That offices requesting clearances ensure the required forms 
are complete and accurate, and make arrangements for 
timely delivery to DS and subsequent pickup of completed 
actions. 


120 


Final Report 


Automated Personnel Systems 

Automated personnel systems are critical to the Personnel 
Bureau's timely, accurate, and efficient processing of personnel 
actions and services. Senior decisionmakers need timely and 
accurate information. If these modem systems are properly 
maintained and properly managed, they will provide extensive 
information and work out complex data relationships expedi¬ 
tiously. They will materially improve the Department's effec¬ 
tiveness in utilizing its Civil Service (and Foreign Service) 
human resources. This has been demonstrated by the 
Department's past success with the Automated Personnel 
Travel System (APTS) and the Personnel From Side System 
(PERFS). 

The Commission understands that the Department is now 
planning a significant investment in a Management Information 
System (MIS), a large and complex automation effort. This is a 
needed addition, but such advanced technologies can only be as 
timely, accurate, and effective as the transaction records and 
other data fed into them. 

The Commission believes that the key to ensuring im¬ 
proved capabilities from the installation of the MIS is to provide 
the human resources and quality standards to ensure that 
information and records enter the system quickly and accu¬ 
rately. Improved electronic access to information that is out of 
date or otherwise inaccurate will not help decisionmakers or 
improve management efficiency. 

The Commission recommends: 

25. That, in addition to moving ahead to acquire a Management 
Information System, the Department make a strong commit¬ 
ment of resources to ensure database accuracy, process 
control, and systems maintenance. 


Posting of Civil Service Vacancies 

The Civil Service vacancy announcement process is far less 
thorough than the highly structured Foreign Service "bid list" 
system, in terms of ensuring that eligible employees are in¬ 
formed of career opportunities. Vacancy notices are posted on 
bulletin boards located in Main State and forwarded to Depart- 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


121 




ment annexes in the Washington area and field offices around 
the country to be available for employees. In response to 
concerns raised by the Ombudsman, Merit Promotion an¬ 
nouncements have recently been added to the "B-Net" televi¬ 
sion system which can be viewed in corridors throughout the 
Main State building, and a biweekly summary of vacancies is 
being distributed to all employees in the form of a Department 
Notice. 

The proposed professional career counseling function will 
do much to improve employee awareness of job opportunities 
but, in the nearer term, the Commission believes that the recent 
B-Net and Department Notice initiatives are important im¬ 
provements that should be fully implemented and sustained. 

The Commission recommends: 

26. That PER continue to use the Department Notice system as a 
vehicle for flagging Civil Service vacancies, and that it 
conduct periodic follow-ups with annexes and field offices 
to assure they are receiving the more detailed OPM-format 
vacancy notices in a timely fashion. 


Noncompetitive Conversions 

The law permits the noncompetitive conversion of Foreign 
Service personnel to the Civil Service. While conversion from 
Civil Service to Foreign Service is also legally possible, the 
Department does not encourage or facilitate this. In practice. 
Foreign Service personnel convert to the Civil Service at the 
higher levels, GS/GM-13 and above, in effect preempting 
promotion opportunities for the Department's Civil Service 
professionals. This is a matter of considerable concern among 
Civil Service personnel. 

The Commission recommends 

27. That the Department undertake a complete review of 
noncompetitive Foreign Service conversions to the Civil 
Service, excluding spousal Part Time Intermittent (PIT) 
conversions; this should include consideration of imposing 
annual limits on such conversions. 


122 


Final Report 



Professional Intern Programs 

The Commission believes that well-structured and -man¬ 
aged professional intern programs can be a tool for recruitment 
of needed skills and for career development. At present, how¬ 
ever, there is no centralized responsibility for all existing pro¬ 
fessional intern programs, including Departmental participa¬ 
tion in the Government-wide Presidential Management Intern 
(PMI) program. The Commission believes that responsibility 
for such professional programs should be consolidated in the 
. Personnel Bureau's Training and Career Development Division, 
along with corresponding additional resources. (Management 
responsibility for academic internships and the summer/ 
seasonal hire programs, which are not employee training or 
career development efforts, is properly assigned to the Office of 
Recruitment and Employment—PER/REE.) 

As far as the Commission has been able to determine, there 
is no planning underway for new, State-specific professional 
intern programs. An effort by the Bureau of Finance and 
Management Policy, in cooperation with the Personnel Bureau, 
to initiate such a program was not successful because of a lack 
of FTE to cover the internships. 

The Commission recommends: 

28. That management of all the professional internships in the 
Department, including the Presidential Management Intern 
(PMI) program, be consolidated and centralized in the PER 
Career Development and Training Division. Commensurate 
resources for this new responsibility must be provided. 

29. That, in the framework of the comprehensive workforce 
study (Recommendation 1), PER initiate a review to deter¬ 
mine which functional categories (e.g., financial manage¬ 
ment, information management, personnel, administrators, 
economists) would be appropriate for future Departmental 
intern programs to attract and develop specific skills. 


Increased Recognition for the Civil Service 

The Commission believes that there has traditionally been 
insufficient public recognition of the contributions of Civil 
Service employees to goals and accomplishments of the Depart¬ 
ment. It believes that new initiatives in this regard are in order. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


123 



There is no celebration for the Civil Service paralleling the 
annual "Foreign Service Day." The Commission seriously 
considered recommending establishment of a "Civil Service 
Recognition Day." It decided, however, that such an approach 
was not consistent with the concept of unity that has been the 
Commission's fundamental premise, i.e., that the Civil Service 
and Foreign Service together make up the Department of State 
team. 

The Commission believes the Department should institute 
an annual "Department of State Day" in which the contribu¬ 
tions and accomplishments of both Civil Service and Foreign 
Service employees would be recognized and celebrated, with 
speeches by senior officials, graphic displays, and individual 
awards. 

Given sufficient senior attention—and some time, the 
concept of a Department (united) Day might come to replace 
the Foreign Service Day with its connotations of exclusivity. 

The Commission notes that State magazine has begun to 
publish more articles on Civil Service matters, and it believes 
that more can be done in this regard. Customarily, several 
pages in State magazine are devoted to an overseas "Post of the 
Month," giving insight into the activities of Foreign Service 
employees and their families abroad. Along the same lines, the 
magazine should increase its coverage of domestic offices and 
operations, including reports on domestic support units, field 
offices, and other areas predominantly staffed by Civil Service 
employees. There should also be periodic State magazine 
reports on the initiatives and directives of the ERB. 

The Commission recommends: 

30. That the Department institute a "Department of State Day" 
to demonstrate recognition and appreciation of the contribu¬ 
tions of both Civil Service and Foreign Service employees 
and to symbolize the partnership between them. 

31. That State magazine increase its coverage of the 
Department's domestic offices and activities, and of ERB 
initiatives. 


124 


Final Report 


Conclusion 


This Commission was charged with finding ways in which 
the Department can improve the management of its Civil 
Service workforce. The mandate reflected a clear desire on the 
part of the Department's leadership to make changes in the way 
it has been carrying out this task. 

The Commission believes that three elements must be in 
place if lasting changes are to occur in the manner in which the 
Department has managed the Civil Service: 

• There must be strong commitment from the top—from the 
Secretary on down—to effect change; 

• Quality men and women must be selected to fill leadership 
roles throughout the human resource management organiza¬ 
tion. Such persons should be selected carefully, tasked with 
the responsibility of implementing improvements, and held 
accountable for quality delivery of services provided. Ac¬ 
countability must be established through the performance 
appraisal process; this is the management tool expressly 
designed for that purpose. 

• There must be an organizational structure that will facilitate 
and institutionalize such initiatives, with a corresponding 
redirection of resources, human and financial, to make the 
processes viable. 

The Commission believes that its recommendations are 
consistent with, and will contribute to, these principles and 
conditions. They are not complete solutions for the identified 
problems, nor do they address every area where improvements 
might be made. Taken overall, however, the Commission 
believes that their implementation would make a noticeable 
and positive difference in the management and the work envi¬ 
ronment of the Department of State's Civil Service employees— 
and their recognition as an invaluable human resource. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


125 





ftliffl natv-Index of Recommendations 


Number Substance Pa ge 

1. Enhance long-range workforce planning. 8 

2. Develop comprehensive recruitment plan- 8 

3. Initiate feasibility study and cost analysis for professional 

development program-8 

4. Reestablish position of Upward Mobility Program 

Coordinator-9 

5. Review and consult with OPM on expansion of Civil 

Service secretaries' advancement opportunities-10 

6. PER/CDA/CDT staff all career development policies, 
training, Pearson program, and overseas excursion tours —-11 

7. PER/CDA/CDT manage a central training complement; 

consider earmarking post-training assignments---11 

8. Identify domestic and overseas positions for GM-13 

to GM-15 and SES rotations-13 

9. ERB establish an incentive lateral career mobility 

program- 13 

10. Anticipate ERB responsibility for GM-13s, GM-14s; 

expand and balance representation-14 

11. Review Civil Service/Foreign Service FTE to provide 

greater equity and flexibility-15 

12. Create professional cadre of career counselors for all 

grade levels-16 

13. Establish career ladder for professional counselors-16 

14. Continue Director General-Assistant Secretary meetings and 

PIE sessions to resolve personnel management issues-18 

15. Hold Personnel Management Conferences, including 

bureau personnelists-18 

16. Establish PER-bureau rotation of personnel specialists.-18 

17. Implement Personnel Management Evaluation (PME) 

Program Department wide-18 

18. Hold first PME in PER-18 

19. Continue to use PER/CSP Management Teams, with 

greater bureau input and feedback-18 

20. Augment PER's position classification capability with 

contract support- 19 

21. Establish PER/bureau working group to review Civil 
Service recruitment and consider a centralized program -—19 

22. Develop FSI program to certify and periodically 

recertify supervisors- 19 












23. Examine "pre-assignment program" concept for 

possible expansion beyond secretary positions-20 

24. Ensure security clearance request forms are accurate 

and timely delivery to DS and pickup-20 

25. Commit resources to ensure database accuracy, process 

control, and maintenance for new automated system-21 

26. Continue Department Notices for Civil Service vacancies; 
ensure timely delivery of OPM-format notice to annexes and 


field offices-22 

27. Review noncompetitive Foreign Service-Civil Service 

conversions-22 


28. Centralize in PER/CDA/CDT management of all 

professional internships, with commensurate resources-23 

29. Consider appropriate functions for possible new 

Department internships-23 

30. Institute "Department of State" day, underscoring 

Civil Service-Foreign Service partnership-24 

31. Increase State magazine coverage of domestic activities-24 


Acknowledgements 

Xv!vIvXv!v;v;vXv;v;vX;X;;vX\vX;;vXv;vIyX;.;A>vXvAv;yXv;\v;yXv;v;y;yX 


The Commission is grateful for the valuable insights and 
assistance it received from many areas of the Department and 
from other U.S. Government agencies, which materially facili¬ 
tated the preparation of this report. The broad scope of this 
generous cooperation is reflected in the list below. 

The Members wish to record a special note of appreciation 
to The Honorable Constance B. Newman, Director of the Office 
of Personnel Management, and to Ms. Dona Wolf of her senior 
staff for the interest they have shown and the advice and en¬ 
couragement they provided. Particular thanks are also due to 
the Director and all the Staff of the Bureau of Administration's 
Executive Office, who for over 2 months allowed the Commis¬ 
sion and its staff to share A/EX conference areas, office space, 
and equipment, and provided a friendly and supportive envi¬ 
ronment. 

The Commission also wishes to give exceptional credit and 
thanks to Ms. Regina M. Eltz, who provided skilled and experi¬ 
enced staff support to the Commission. She acted as raporteur 
at its meetings, prepared detailed minutes and communica¬ 
tions, drafted portions of this report, and served as its editor. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


127 






Her assistance was essential to the successful and timely 
completion of the Commission's work. 

The Commission sincerely appreciates the assistance 
provided by the following offices and individuals: 

Other Agencies 


Constance B. Newman, 
Director 
Dona Wolf 
Edward Czaplicki 
Christine Smith 
Shirley A. Helton 


Office of Personnel Management 

Office of Personnel Management 
National Security Agency 
General Accounting Office 
Retired Civil Service Employee 


Department of State 


Office of the Ombudsman 
John Byerly, 

Civil Service Ombudsman 
Rosalie D'Angelo 
Office of the Inspector General 
Sherman M. Funk, 

Inspector General 
Terrance J. Shea 
Bureau of Consular Affairs 
Adrienne B. Hatchett 
Barry J. Kefauver 
Bureau of Diplomatic Security 
Sheldon J. Krys, 

Assistant Secretary 
Janice Adams 
Dolores Colbert 
Ralph Frank 
Gary Gower 
Rose Grover 
Danuta U. Guzowski 
Joseph Koscinski 
Gregory Liverpool 
George Mattis 
Ronald Reams 
Philip Schol 
Phyllis Smith 
Wesley Williams 
Watt Young 


Bureau of Economic and 
Business Affairs 
John A. Barcas 
Bureau of European and 
Canadian Affairs 
Sarah Alexander 
Douglas Langan 
Bureau of Finance and 
Management Policy 
Melvin Hines 
Harriet. L. Lancaster 
Foreign Service Institute 
Brandon H. Grove, Jr., 
Director 

Donald C. Leidel 
John T. Sprott 
Barry Wells 
Bureau of Intelligence 
and Research 
James A. Weiner 
Bureau of Inter-American 
Affairs 

Mario Cantu 
John E. Clark 
Bureau of International 
Organization Affairs 
Cookie C. Clark 
Louis N. Deaner 


Andrea S. Matthews 

Barbara A. Johnson 

Kathleen A. Stemplinski 

Jacques P. Klein 

Office of the Legal Advisor 

Wayne Leininger 

Robert J. McCannell 

Terry Manly 

Bureau of Administration 

Evelyn Manning 

Arthur W. Fort, 

Brenda Marshall 

Assistant Secretary 

Ryszard Olewnik 

Bruce W. Clark 

Clarence N. Page 

Joseph McGuire 

Willie D. Poindexter 

Richard Shekels 

Patricia Popovich 

Equal Employment 

Lange Schermerhorn 

Opportunity and Civil Rights 

Cassis Sopko 

Audrey Morton 

Donna Stroman 

Bureau of Near East and 

Linda Taglialatela 

South Asian Affairs 

Clyde Taylor 

Eric J. Boswell 

Margaret Uyehara 

Bureau of Personnel 

Loretta T. Vargas 

Antoinette Boyd 

Charles Wackerman 

Jan E. Burke 

Angela White 

Andrea Campbell 

Ron Whitworth 

Alfred Carroll 

Margarite Wren 

Janice Clemens 

EEO Advisory Council 

Thomas Dean 

Lewis Cleveland 

Alex De La Garza 

Corazon S. Foley 

Mary Downey 

Charles Hughes 

Lynwood Eaton 

Irene P. Lucas 

Deborah Hall 

Peter F. Romero 

Macon Hardy 

Robert Tsukayama 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


129 


Appendix IV 




People Seen by Commission/Staff 

Following is a partial list of persons the Commission 
and staff met with or interviewed. It was not possible to 
obtain all the names of persons attending some of the larger 
meetings, and some organizational affiliations are missing. 

Abbott, L.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Adams, Kelli—American Embassy, Paris 

Adams, Richard—American Consulate General, 
Maracaibo 

Agee, Patsy—USUN 

Alt, Maryann—USUN 

Andross, Susan—Staff, House Foreign Affairs 
Committee 

Archer, Pamela Corey—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Austreng, Heidi—American Embassy, Lome 

Bacchus, William—Management 2000 Study 

Bachman, Brian —American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Baker, Robert—American Embassy, Lagos 

Bannerman, Graeme—Member, Thomas Commis¬ 
sion 

Barnes, Richard—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Barry, Kevin—American Embassy, Caracas 

Beaulieu, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Beith, Patricia— American Embassy, Paris 

Berges, Beverly—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Berman, Howard—Member of Congress 

Bermingham, James—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Biggers, Jim—American Embassy, Paris 
Bishop, Robyn M.—American Embassy, Lagos 
Blagg, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 
Boardman, John—USUN 


Bocchetti, Mark—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Bohlen, Avis—American Embassy, Paris 
Booth, Anita—PER/RMA 

Bowen, Andrew—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Bowers, Gerald—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Bright, Robert L.—American Embassy, Lagos 

Brito, Roberto—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Brooks, Karen—USUN 

Brown, Bruce—FMP/BP 

Budden, R.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Busch, Cherry 1—American Embassy, Cotonou 

Bush, Leslie—USUN 

Buss, Nancy—USUN 

Byerly, John—Department of State Ombudsman 
Byron, Kevin—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Caldwell, Gary—American Embassy, Paris 
Carle, Lisa—American Embassy, Paris 
Carroll, Kevin—IO/EX 

Cavigla, Mario V.—Office Of Personnel Manage¬ 
ment 

Cervantes, Lovilia—President, AFGE Local 3309, El 
Paso, Texas 

Chaplin, Steven—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Chapman, Gerald—American Embassy, Paris 

Chapoteau, Jean-Rene—American Embassy, Lagos 

Charlton, John F.—American Embassy, Lome 

Christenson, Geryld—Staff, SFRC 

Chumley, Lana—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Clogston, Micheal D. —Office of Personnel Manage 
ment 

Clark, Sherryl—American Embassy, Paris 

Clark, John—ARA/EX 

Clark, Sarah—American Embassy, Lome 


130 


Final Report 









Cohen, David—USUN 

Connolly, Donald, J.—American Consulate General, 
Kaduna 

Connors, Brenda—USUN 

Conway, Vern—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Cornell, Thomas—American Embassy, Cotonou 

Coviello, Cheryl—American Consulate General, 
Kaduna 

Creevy, Carolyn—PER/CDA 
Criss, Ola—American Embassy, Lagos 
Cronk, Vivian—American Embassy, Paris 
Crumpton, Sandra—American Embassy, Paris 

Dangelo, Rosalie—Office of the Ombudsman, DOS 

Das, Anthony—Department of State Ombudsman 

Dattel, Marion—American Embassy, Paris 

de Aguilar, Ana—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Dejban, Donna—American Embassy, Paris 

De La Garza, Alexander—PER/RMA 

DeLair, Louis—American Embassy, Mexico City 

de Moissac, Christiane— American Embassy, Paris 

de Reginfo, Gladys—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

De Roche, Joseph—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Dieterich, William J.—Charge, American Embassy 
San Salvador 

Dietz, Daniel—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Dillard, Diane—American Embassy, Paris 
Dollar, Carolyn—Secretarial Committee, AFSA 
Donahue, Joan—American Embassy, Paris 
Dugan, Hugh—USUN 

Duncombe, Bruce—American Embassy, Lagos 
Durkin, Kenneth—American Embassy, Caracas 
Dym, Jordana—USUN 

Earle, Robert—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Eason, Bobby—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Ecton, Stephen, USOECD, Paris 
Eddy, John—M/DGP 

Edensword, John—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Eder, Scott—American Embassy, Lome 


Edwards, Pat—American Embassy, Lagos 
Egge, Robert—AID 

Elbow, Susan—American Embassy, San Salvador 
Engelman, Ida—Civil Service Task Force 
Errion, Lisa—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Estrada, Roland—American Embassy, Caracas 

Farnsworth, Laura—American Embassy, San 
Salvador 

Farrell, Eileen—FMP/MP/MMP 
Felder, Robert C.—American Embassy, Caracas 
Feret, Tara—American Embassy, Paris 
Fiore, Jean—USUN 

Fitzpatrick, Thomas J.—American Embassy, 
Mexico City 

Foley, Cora S.—Management 2000 Task Force 

Ford, James—American Embassy, Lagos 

Fordyce-App, Kimberlee—American Embassy, 
Lagos 

Forrest, Warren—USUN 

Francis, Carol—American Embassy, Lagos 

Freeman, D.—American Embassy, Caracas 

French, Kenneth—RAMC, Paris 

French, Sandy—American Embassy, Caracas 

Frenzel, Gregory—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Friedbauer, Mark—American Embassy, Paris 
Fulton, Martha—USUN 

Galo, Ivonne—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Gamble, Lisa—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Garcia, Luis—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Gamer, Daniel R.—American Embassy, Lome 

Garnett, Mrs. Wesley—American Embassy, 
Mexico City 

Garro, Susan—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Garvin, Emma—USUN 
Gatto, Donald—American Embassy, Lagos 
Gayol, Vicky—American Embassy, Caracas 
Gerson, Leslie—American Embassy, San Salvador 
Gidez, Fran—Civil Service Task Force 
Gilliam, Adele—USUN 

Girard Ampofo, L.—American Embassy, Caracas 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


131 





Gomez-Rivera, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Goodrich, Ellen—American Embassy, Paris 

Graham, Russell—USUN 

Graham, Virginia—USUN 

Gray, A.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Grey, Robert—USUN 

Gunn, D.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Hain, G.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Hannan, Robert—American Embassy, Paris 

Hanson, Anissa—American Embassy, Paris 

Hanson, Bradford—USUN 

Hart, Tricia—American Embassy, Paris 

Hartman, Lise—Staff, HFAC 

Hartman, Lois E.—AID 

Harvey, Barbara—M/DGP 

Hathaway, Michael—Staff, SFRC 

Haverty, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Haynes, Sr., Alfred O.—Commission on Civil 
Service Personnel 

Hazel, Cinderella—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Hernandez, Awilda—USUN 
Hicks, Irvin—USUN 

Higgins, John (Peter)—American Embassy, Paris 

Hoey, C.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Holladay, Thomas—American Embassy Caracas 

Holloway, Perry—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Holmes, Genta Hawkins—Director General of the 
Foreign Service 

Horan, Hume—AFSA 

Hughes, Dr. Howard—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Hunter, Kenneth—M/DGP 

Irvine, Ann Lang—American Consulate General, 
Kaduna 

Jacobson, Anna Rose—American Embassy, Paris 

Jacobson, Keith—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Jakubowski, Stanley—USUN 

Japinga, Kim —Staff, House Committee on Post 
Office and Civil Service 


James, Makila—American Consulate General, 
Kaduna 

Jenkins-Beauliu, D.—American Embassy, Caracas 
Jenkins, Jack—A 

Jenks, Darrell A.—American Consul General, 
Maracaibo 

Johnson, Patricia—American Embassy, Paris 
Johnson, Sandor—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Johnston, Loretta—American Embassy, Paris 
Jones, Franklin—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Kaffenberger, David—Civil Service Task Force 

Kamerick, S.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Kennedy, John—American Embassy, Paris 

Kenney, Joseph—FMP/BP 

Kessler, Joanne—USUN 

Killion, Dalton—PER/RMA 

Kimberly, C.—American Embassy, Caracas 

King, Russell—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Kirby, Harmon—American Ambassador, Lome 

Kirchoff, Frank—USUN 

Kitson, Beverly—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Kleiman, Katheryn—DGP/PC 

Knight, James—American Embassy, Lagos 

Kodzo, Amesefe—American Embassy, Lome 

Konzet, Lorraine—USUN 

Kraus, Miller—American Embassy, Paris 

Kuehl, Craig—USUN 

Kuffler, Pat—USUN 

Langford, Patricia A.—American Embassy, Mexico 
City 

Lauderdale, Clint—OIG 

Lawrence, S.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Leidel, Donald—M/FSI 

Leif, Eric—Staff, HFAC 

Lichtig, Karen—USUN 

Lissauer, Liesl—USUN 

List, Kathleen—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Livingood, Leslie—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Long, William—American Embassy, Mexico City 


132 


Final Report 






Low, Ann—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Lynch, Pamela—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Macuk, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Magruder, John—OES 

Mahoney, Laurie—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Mains, William—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Malloy, Jane—USUN 

Manago, Diane—American Embassy, Paris 

Manber, Vee—USUN 

Manley, P.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Manly, Theresa—Civil Service Task Force 

Manning, Evelyn—PER/EX/RR 

Mansfield, Robert 

Marks, Edward—USUN 

Martin, Pauline—American Embassy Mexico City 

Mayfield, Mark—American Embassy, Lagos 

McAnneny, Robert, American Embassy, Lagos 

McConville, Donald—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

McGehee, Scott—American Embassy, Paris 

McGrath, Maria—American Embassy, Paris 

McGunnigle, James— American Embassy, Paris 

McHale, Patrick—OES 

Mclnturff, Richard—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Mclnturff, Sandra—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

McKenzie, Connie—American Embassy, Caracas 

McNamara, John—Georgetown University 

Meer, Ahmed—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Mensah, Alexis—American Embassy, Lome 

Merkin, Dr. Terry—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Meyers, Michael—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Miller, Heywood—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Millspaugh, P.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Molino, Francisco—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Moller, Robert—USUN 

Moore, Nadia—American Embassy, Mexico City 


Moose, George—USUN 

Morton, Audrey—S/EEOCR 

Morton, Carol—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Mueller, David—American Embassy, Lagos 

Munoz, Arnold—American Embassy, Caracas 

Mutschler, Susan—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Nakamura, Kennon H.—Staff, HFAC 

Nance, James W.,— Minority Staff Director, SFRC 

Negroponte, John D.—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Nevitt, Robert—USUN 

Nguyen, Mary—USUN 

Nichols, Brian—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Nixon, Charlene—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Norris, Marion V. Jr.—American Embassy, Caracas 

O'Brien, Geraldine—NEA/EX 

Olson, G. Brent—OIG 

Olson, Kathleen—PER/CDA/JO 

Osthaus, John—Staff, House Appropriations Com¬ 
mittee 

Padovano, Constance—USUN 
Palmer, Betsy—American Embassy, Cotonou 
Palmer, Frederick—American Embassy, Cotonou 
Pandya, Amit—Staff, HFAC 

Parker, Donald—American Embassy, 

San Salvador 

Parker, Maurice—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Patterson, Elise—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Pazina, Susan—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Peel, Kenneth—Staff, HFAC 

Pegues, Clarence—PER/FSN 

Pelcher, Carter—Staff, SFRC 

Pelletier, Michael—American Consulate General, 
Kaduna 

Pena, Eduardo—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Perkins, Edward—Permanent Representative to the 
UN (former Director General of the Foreign 
Service) 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


133 




Perkins, T.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Persley, Gilbert—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Peters, Betsy—American Embassy, Cotonou 

Piche, Jorge—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Pickering, Thomas—American Ambassador, New 
Delhi (former Representative to the United 
Nations) USUN 

Pinckley, Adele—American Embassy, San Salvador 
Plotkin, Robert—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Poulton, Lynette—American Embassy, Paris 
Powell, Jo Ellen—American Embassy, Paris 
Powell, Mark—American Embassy, San Salvador 
Powell, Nancy—American Embassy, Lome 
Pruitt, Louis—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Randall, Marilyn—Office of Personnel Management 

Rathbone, John Q.— Office of Personnel Manage¬ 
ment 

Rennie, Lance C.—American Embassy, Cotonou 

Rensch, Patty—American Embassy, Lagos 

Reynosa, Enrique—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Rickerson, Bruce—Staff, Senator Pressler 

Ripley, Joseph—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Roberts, Dr. Esther—American Embassy, Paris 

Robles, J.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Rogers, John—Under Secretary for Management, 
DOS 

Ross, Daniel—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Ross, Michael—American Embassy, Lagos 
Ruiz, Karen—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Saba tie, Nicole—American Embassy, Paris 

Salazar, John—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Salome, Anika—American Embassy, Lome 

Sampas, Dorothy—USUN 

Sanchez, Alicia—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Sandoval, Laura—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Sasser, Bruce—OMB 

Schmidt, Susan—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Schittulli, Pat L.—Member, Thomas Commission 


Schwartz, Louis—National Academy of Public 
Administration 

Searls, Melvin—American Embassy, Paris 

Serpa, Nancy—M/DGP 

Serwer, Claudia—American Embassy, Caracas 

Sessoms, Allen L.—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Shannon, D.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Shaw, Scott—USUN 

Shearhouse, Sue—USUN 

Shenwick, Linda—USUN 

Sherman, George—USUN 

Shestack, Laurie—USUN 

Shub, A.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Sicade, Lynn M.—American Embassy 
San Salvador 

Singler, John—USUN 

Skol, Michael M.—American Ambassador, Caracas 

Solon, Kathryn—American Embassy, San Salvador 

Smith, Charles—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Smitham, Thomas—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Speer, David—President, NFFE Local 1998, 

Los Angeles, CA 

Steinhoff, Lena—American Embassy, Paris 
Stetson, Nancy—Staff, SFRC 
Stoddard, Ann—USUN 
Stolkin, Lenore—USUN 

Streeter, Alvin—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Stringham, BG Joseph—American Embassy, Mexico 
City 

Struck, William—PER 

Suarez, Dr. Jaime— American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Swart, Susan—American Embassy, Caracas 

Symington IV, Stuart—American Embassy, Mexico 
City 

Tanabe, Flo—American Embassy, Lome 

Tappe, William—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Tavenner, John— American Embassy, Mexico City 
Taylor, Clyde—PER/CDA 
Telles, Thomas—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Terry, S.—American Embassy, Caracas 


134 


Final Report 







Thomas, John—Chairman, Thomas Commission 

Thompson, Kathleen—American Embassy, Paris 

Thornton, Corinne—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Tome, Pedro—USUN 

Tomchek, Debra M.—Office of Personnel Manage¬ 
ment 

Trail III, George A.—American Embassy, Lagos 

Traytsman, David—USUN 

Treger, Herbert—American Embassy, Paris 

Ulrich, Henry A.—AID 

Vargas, Loretta—PER/CDA 

Velarde, Margaret—PER/RMA 

Villaraus, Olga—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Vincent, John—American Embassy, Mexico City 
Vinson, Fred—American Embassy, Lome 
Vockerodt, V.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Walters, Anthony—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Watson, Bill—USUN 

Watson, Dorothy—USUN 

Weinland, Helen—American Consul General, 
Kaduna 


Weisblatt, Fanny—USUN 

Welch, D.—American Embassy, Caracas 

Whiteside, Ruth A.—M/DGP 

Whittemore, Simone—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Wilkinson, Theodore—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Williams, Ann—American Embassy, Mexico City 

Williamson, Larry—M/DGP 

Willson, Carolyn—USUN 

Wisecarver, Charles—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Wuensch, William—American Embassy, 

Mexico City 

Wynes, Deborah—IO 

Yeutter, D.—American Embassy, Paris 

Yuspeh, Sheldon—PER/ER 

Zweifel, David—OIG 

The Commission particularly wishes to recognize the 
members of Foreign Service National Associations who 
met with them in Caracas, Cotonou, Kaduna, Lagos, Lome, 
Mexico City, San Salvador, and Paris. In many cases, the 
delegations were so large that it was not possible to obtain 
all the names. The Commission also met with groups of 
spouses at all visited posts, some of whose names are not 
included above. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


135 


Appendix V 





Commission Biographies 

Nicholas A. Veliotes, Chairman 

Ambassador Veliotes was born on October 28,1928, in 
Oakland, California. After serving in the United States 
Army 1946-48, he entered the University of California at 
Berkeley and was awarded both Bachelor's and Master's 
degrees. Mr. Veliotes joined the Foreign Service in March 
1955 and served in Vientiane, New Delhi, Rome, and Naples. 
In 1969, he was selected as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at 
Princeton University. 

From 1970 to 1973, he was Special Assistant to the 
Deputy Secretary of State. He served as Deputy Chief of 
Mission in Tel Aviv from 1973-75, then returned to Wash¬ 
ington, first as Deputy Director of the State Department's 
Policy Planning Staff (1976-77), and later as Deputy Assis¬ 
tant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian 
Affairs (1977-78). 

Mr. Veliotes was Ambassador to Jordan from 1978 to 
February 1981, then served as Assistant Secretary of State 
for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs until October 
1983. In November 1983, he was named U.S. Ambassador 
to Egypt and served in that post until his retirement from 
the Foreign Service in April 1986. In May 1986, Mr. Veliotes 
became President of the Association of American Publish¬ 
ers. 

He is a member of the American Academy of Diplo¬ 
macy, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Washington 
Institute of Foreign Affairs, the American Foreign Service 
Association, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. 

Members 


Sally Henry Greenberg 

Mrs. Greenberg retired in December 1980 after more 
than 35 years of Federal service, specializing in personnel- 
related fields. Her position at the time of retirement was 
Associate Director of the Office of Personnel Management 


for Executive Personnel and Management Development. 
In this position, Mrs. Greenberg was responsible for the 
installation government-wide of the Senior Executive Ser¬ 
vice, and for overseeing all management and executive 
development in the Executive Branch, including operation 
of the Federal Executive Institute. Prior to this, Mrs. 
Greenberg chaired the Task Force for Establishment of a 
Senior Executive Service. Earlier, she was an Assistant 
Director of the then Civil Service Commission, and the 
Chief of the Commission's Office of Planning and Analysis. 

Since retiring, Mrs. Greenberg has been a management 
consultant. She has also served on a number of panels of the 
National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), in¬ 
cluding those studying the personnel systems of the Smith¬ 
sonian Institution, the Health Care Financing Administra¬ 
tion, and the Federal Judiciary. She was a member of the 
NAPA panel that recommended revisions in the Federal 
position classification system. 

Herbert Harrington, Jr. 

Mr. Harrington has over 25 years' experience in all 
aspects of domestic and international personnel manage¬ 
ment, equal employment opportunity, and affirmative ac¬ 
tion. He has administered major personnel programs at 
both operating and policy levels in the U.S., Japan, Korea, 
South Vietnam, and Thailand. He has been recognized by 
numerous awards and commendations for outstanding 
accomplishments in human resource management involv¬ 
ing American and foreign work forces. He received his 
undergraduate degree in Business Administration and So¬ 
ciology from the University of Maryland, and a Master's 
degree in Personnel Management from the George Wash¬ 
ington University. He is a member of the International 
Personnel Management Association, the American Society 
of Public Administration, the National Civil Service League, 
the American Management Association, and the Associa¬ 
tion of Affirmative Action Officers. 

Andrew M. Kramer 

Mr. Kramer has been the Chairman of the Labor and 
Employment Law Section of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue 
since 1983. He received his undergraduate degree with 
honors from Michigan State University and is a cum laude 


136 


Final Report 






graduate of Northwestern University School of Law. Mr. 
Kramer has been engaged exclusively in the practice of 
labor and employment law since 1969. In 1973-74, he 
chaired the Illinois Office of Collective Bargaining. 

Mr. Kramer has a wide range of employment law and 
human resources experience. He has represented public 
and private sector employees in Federal and State courts 
and before administrative agencies. Mr. Kramer has nego¬ 
tiated collective bargaining agreements and has provided 
counseling and advice with respect to the development of 
employment and labor relations strategies for a diverse 
group of employers. 

Mr. Kramer is the author of various law review articles 
on labor and employment law issues. He has chaired 
several subcommittees of the Labor and Employment Law 
Section of the American Bar Association and has spoken at 
numerous conferences on topics pertaining to the employ¬ 
ment field. 

Ronald C. Moe 

Ronald C. Moe is currently the Specialist in Govern¬ 
ment Organization and Management with the Congres¬ 
sional Research Service of the Library of Congress. He 
received his doctorate in public law and government from 
Columbia University in 1968. Prior to joining CRS in 1973, 
he served in various positions in the executive branch, 
including Senior Policy Advisor to the Cost of Living Coun¬ 
cil in the Executive Office of the President. Over the years 
Dr. Moe has taught at several universities, including Co¬ 
lumbia University, City University of New York, San Diego 
State University, and American University. His writings 
include books and articles in professional journals. In 1988, 
he received the Louis Brownlow Award from the American 
Society for Public Administration for the best article, "Ex¬ 
ploring the Limits of Privatization," which appeared in the 
Public Administration Review that year. He is a fellow of the 
National Academy of Public Administration and is cur¬ 
rently working on a book on institutional politics in the 
contemporary administrative state. 

Ersa Poston 

Ms. Poston is retired vice chair of the U.S. Merit Systems 
Protection Board, a former member of the International 
Civil Service Commission, and former President of the New 
York State Civil Service Commission. She is also a former 
president of the International Personnel Management As¬ 
sociation, and a former alternate delegate to the United 
Nations General Assembly. 

Ms. Poston was the 1989 recipient of the Stockberger 
Award, the highest award obtainable in the field of public 


personnel management. She was a member of the 1988-89 
Commission on the Foreign Service Personnel System (the 
Thomas Commission). 

Torrey Stephen Whitman 

Mr. Whitman is currently adjunct professor of Ameri¬ 
can history at Towson State University. He expects to 
receive his Ph.D. in history from the Johns Hopkins Univer¬ 
sity in 1992. He received his B.A. from Michigan State 
University, an M.S. in Information Science from Drexel 
University, and an M.A. in history from the Johns Hopkins 
University. 

Mr. Whitman was employed by the Department of 
State between 1975 and 1990. During that time he served as 
the Department's Coordinator for Civil Service Reform 
(1978-82), as a program analyst in the International Organi¬ 
zations Bureau, and as personnel policy analyst in the 
Office of the Director General of the Foreign Service. In the 
latter capacity, he served as Congressional liaison, working 
on the annual authorization and appropriations legislation, 
the reform of the Civil and Foreign Service Retirement 
Systems in 1985-86, and implementation of the Foreign 
Service Act of 1980, and as affirmative action officer. He 
also served as liaison to the first Commission on the Foreign 
Service Personnel System (Thomas Commission) in 1988- 
89. 

Commission Staff 


C. Edward Dillery, Executive Director 

Ambassador Dillery was born in Seattle, Washington 
on December 17, 1930. He was educated in the Seattle 
public school system, graduating from Ballard High School 
in 1948. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history 
from Seattle Pacific College in 1953 and a MS in the admin¬ 
istration of national security from George Washington 
University in 1973. Ambassador Dillery entered the For¬ 
eign Service in May 1955. He served overseas in Tokyo, 
Kobe, Brussels, Vietnam, London, and Nicosia and in nu¬ 
merous assignments in the Department of State. He was 
ambassador to Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Kiribati, 1984-87. 

Charles R. Casper, Jr., Deputy Executive 
Director 

Mr. Casper is a native of Terre Haute, Indiana. He 
received a Bachelor of Science Degree in business statistics 
and economics from Indiana University and an MBA from 
the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern Uni¬ 
versity. He served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam 
war. 


Commission on State Department Personnel 


137 


Prior to government service, he was a management 
consultant with Arthur Young & Company. Clients in¬ 
cluded for-profit businesses as well as Federal and State 
governments involving health care, welfare, minority eco¬ 
nomic development, and marketing and distribution of 
foods. 

Prior to joining the Department of State, he was with the 
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, holding a num¬ 
ber of management positions, including Director of the 
Budget and Planning Division responsible for all resources 
of the Agency. 

At the Department of State, Mr. Casper has been direc¬ 
tor of the Offices of Resource Control and of Resource 
Policy for the Comptroller. Most recently, he was the senior 
policy adviser to the Chief Financial Officer responsible for 
congressional liaison and development of strategies for 
resource acquisition and utilization. 


Edmund K. Sutow 

Mr. Sutow was bom in Osaka, Japan on January 16, 
1950. His parents were in Japan as part of the U.S. Occupa¬ 
tion Forces. He was raised in Houston, Texas, which he still 
calls home. Mr. Sutow earned bachelor of art degrees in 
English literature, cultural anthropology, and political sci¬ 
ence from the University of Texas at Austin and a masters 
degree in international relations from the American Uni¬ 
versity in Washington, D.C. 

Mr. Sutow has served in Mexico, Canada, and Santo 
Domingo. 

Ruth Love, Secretary 

Ms. Love is a Foreign Service secretary with a long 
series of overseas posts, including her first posting to 
Bamako, Mali (with several trips to Timbuktu). Her first 
Washington assignment was to the Bureau of Politico- 
Military Affairs as secretary to the Department of State's 
representative to the disarmament negotiations (START). 

Before coming to the Department of State, Ms. Love 
was employed at the Ladies' Home Journal. 


138 


Final Report 


























































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